


Guide Me Home To You

by MagicaDraconia16



Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Iron Man 1, IronHusbands Big Bang 2020, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark Friendship, M/M, Protective James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Protective Jarvis (Iron Man movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:42:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27229786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagicaDraconia16/pseuds/MagicaDraconia16
Summary: When his 15th birthday passed without him either gaining the spiked senses of a Sentinel or the empathic surge of a Guide, Tony Stark was marked as a Null. His MIT roommate and best friend James Rhodes had presented as a Guide but hadn't found his Sentinel yet.When Tony is captured and held in Afghanistan for three months by the Ten Rings, it marks the longest he's ever been away from Rhodey since they first met all those years ago.And after that . . . everything changes.
Relationships: James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes/Tony Stark, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) & Tony Stark, Obadiah Stane & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts & Tony Stark, Tony Stark & Ho Yinsen
Comments: 8
Kudos: 261
Collections: Ironhusbands Big Bang 2020, Marvel, Suggested Good Reads





	Guide Me Home To You

**Author's Note:**

> When I sent in the summary of this story for artist claims, I marked it as around a 10k-ish word count, thinking it _may_ possibly stretch up to 12k if it went a bit long. It was supposed to begin with a brief skip through Afghanistan to point out the changes. Instead, Tony took hold and spent 8k words alone getting out of the damn cave. And then he just kept going, and going, and going, and going. 
> 
> I deeply apologise to my wonderful artist, machi_kun, as I hadn't actually started when claims began, and then blew past the estimated word count like it wasn't even there. So they had to make do with what I _could_ give them, and they did a [cracking job](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27283537). So definitely go and give it all the love. 
> 
> A great deal of lines and events will look very familiar, but I've wiggled them around a little. I also didn't realise at first that, in-film, the terrorist who shows Tony all the Stark weapons isn't actually named, so I wrote him as Raza. It wasn't until I reached the point where the big-cheese leader shows up that I realised _he_ was actually Raza, but by that point, the other guy had had too much screentime for me to go back and change it. 
> 
> Additionally, I've greatly condensed the IM1 timeline. In the film, it's about five months between Tony returning home and the gala event where he finds out about Gulmira and Obie's betrayal. Here, it's only a few days.

Everything changed when one of his own bombs exploded in his face.

Well, no… well, yes, _obviously_ everything changed after that, but the most _drastic_ change had apparently happened several years before, and nobody had noticed.

Tony Stark woke up in a cave deep in the Afghani desert after open heart surgery and his first thought was not _Dear God, where am I and what have they done to me?_ , but rather _Dear God, please let Rhodey be okay!_ He rather regretted now that he hadn’t allowed Rhodey to ride in the Humvee with him. At least then, he might have Rhodey here with him now.

_(Or, his traitorous mind whispered, he might know for sure that Rhodey was dead. Dead and gone, and shit, what the hell was he supposed to do without his honeybear?)_

His second thought, finally, concerned the wires that seemed to be coming from _inside_ him, stretching up to what looked a great deal like an old-fashioned _car battery!_

“What?” he croaked, one hand grappling for the ends of the wires. They were just attached to his skin, right? Never mind that yanking on them was causing his heart to skip beats in a very unpleasant manner.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a calm voice told him. “I saved your life; it’d be a shame if you wasted all my hard work like that.”

Tony finally looked up, and had to squint. The room they were in was very small, and very dark, lit only by a small wood-burning stove. There was a man crouched over it, using the faint light to look into a small mirror so as to guide his hand as he drew a razor blade over his cheek. The man met his gaze in the mirror and the other side of his mouth quirked up into a rueful smile.

“What is this? What’s going on?” Tony asked. He struggled to lever himself upright without upsetting the wires or the battery they stretched to. “Who are you?”

“My name is Ho Yinsen, and I am the man who managed to perform a miracle.” The man straightened up and reached for a rag, wiping off the remnants of the stubble he’d been shaving off. He pulled a small tube out of his trouser pocket and held it out to Tony. “My village has seen numerous men with wounds like yours. They call them the walking dead. No-one has ever survived.”

“Until me,” Tony observed. He had to bite back a shiver of revulsion – the ghost of Howard loomed over his shoulder, white-hot welding irons in his hand and being thrust towards Tony in a silent demand that it be taken – but accepted the tube from Yinsen. He tilted it towards the stove. Miniscule bits of metal were gathered at the bottom.

“Until you,” Yinsen agreed. “I did the best I could, but there is still shrapnel left inside. It was too close to your heart for me to safely remove with the tools I had. That battery is linked to an electromagnet. So don’t pull the wires out.”

A wave of nausea crawled over Tony as he looked down again at the bandages circling his chest. Shrapnel in his chest. An _electromagnet_ in his chest! If he removed the wires, or the battery died, then the minute pieces of his own weapon would start moving towards his heart and eventually shred it to pieces.

“Don’t pull the wires out,” he croaked, placing a hand protectively over the area. “Got it.” He reached with his other arm to scoop the battery off the rickety box posing as a bedside table into his lap. “Hey, uh, was anyone else brought in with me?” he asked. He didn’t hold out much hope for the poor unfortunate soldiers who’d been in the Humvee with him – he’d seen at least two of them go down, after all – but there had been several bigwigs following in the trucks behind him.

_(Don’t think about Rhodey, dead and lying somewhere out in the desert, covered with sand so that no-one will ever know where he is.)_

“No,” Yinsen said, calmly. “The Ten Rings were after you alone.”

Tony went absolutely cold. “I was in a convoy,” he managed to get out through lips that didn’t want to move as they should. “Did they just… kill everyone else in it?”

Yinsen shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “I suppose it depends on who tried to fight back.”

 _(Rhodey would have tried to fight back. Rhodey would have tried to fight_ for me _. Rhodey’s—)_

 _No, nope, nuh-uh, not thinking that!_ It hurt, to have to slam the door on any thoughts of his best friend, but if he wanted to get out of here alive – and he was going to get out of here and _salt the earth behind him_ – then he couldn’t indulge himself by curling into a ball and weeping. He had to be strong, he had to fight back and keep going, and get himself out of here.

He was about to ask Yinsen what the Ten Rings, whoever they were, had taken him for when there was a commotion outside. Yinsen turned his head to listen, then backed away from the stove, hands reaching out for Tony to urge him to his feet. Tony wobbled, still unsteady from the damn _open heart surgery_. Yinsen steadied him, then released him to link his hands behind his head.

“Do exactly as I do,” Yinsen warned him.

Juggling the battery into a better position close to his chest, Tony could only raise one hand to clasp the back of his neck as the door to the room opened and a group of terrorists flooded in. Rifles were pointed threateningly at him and Yinsen.

Rifles that Tony was _very_ familiar with.

“Those are my guns,” he said, blankly. One of the terrorists barked something in a harsh, guttural language, and poked the rifle in their direction. “How did they get my guns?”

Another terrorist pushed his way to the front of the group. He wasn’t carrying a rifle, but there were two pistols secured through his belt. This was obviously the leader of the Ten Rings. He said something in the same harsh language to Yinsen.

“He says,” Yinsen translated, obediently, “welcome Tony Stark, greatest weapons manufacturer in the world. He… _requests_ that you build him one of his own.” The terrorist leader reached back, and a lesser grunt slapped a photo into the man’s hand. The leader held it up so that Tony could see it and said something else. “He wants you to build him a Jericho missile,” said Yinsen.

Tony stared at the photo, taken however long ago, of the demonstration he’d done for the US Armed Forces. Of the mushroom cloud of smoke and sand that billowed into the air. Then he stared at the terrorist leader, fat and brawny, swarthy skin and small, greedy-looking eyes.

“No,” he said.

The terrorist leader stared at him for a moment, and then a slow smile spread across his face.

“He says he knew that would be your first answer,” Yinsen said for him, as he began to speak again. “So he will have to employ some matters of persuasion. He recommends you think over your answer carefully.”

Tony thought about it for all of two seconds. “Fuck you,” he said, and spat at the leader’s feet.

The smile widened.

“You should not have done that,” Yinsen reported in a flat monotone that was creepily at odds with the way the terrorist leader was smirking at him. “But he knew that you would be intractable at first, so he will commence with changing your mind.”

Several of the minions were beckoned forwards. They grasped hold of Tony and dragged him with them back through the group. He stumbled several times, trying to both keep his footing on the uneven floor when he couldn’t see where he was being forcibly taken and to keep hold of the car battery so that he didn’t accidentally yank the life-saving wires out of his chest.

The terrorists’ network of caverns was much better lit than their little room had been, which was to be expected. They dragged Tony through several twists and turns, apparently under the impression that they were confusing him. Seemed they’d forgotten that he was a _genius_. Memorising the route they were taking was child’s play for him.

The room they ended up in was even brighter than the corridors. The halogen lights glinted off the large barrel that had been carefully placed in the middle of the room. They _also_ reflected off the water inside that reached right to the top of the barrel.

The leader, following behind, barked out orders that Tony couldn’t understand, and the terrorists strong-arming him dragged him right up to the barrel and, without even a by-your-leave, shoved his head and shoulders into it.

Unsurprisingly, the water instantly splashed everywhere around them, and Tony’s struggles to get upright didn’t help. He didn’t have a prayer of keeping the car battery dry, and within thirty seconds it gave him a nasty electric shock, just before they pulled him back out of the water. He was allowed ten seconds to gasp precious air before they plunged him in again.

He didn’t know how long they kept it up for. Plunge him in, electric shock, ten seconds of air, rinse and repeat. And repeat, and repeat, and repeat.

Eventually, the leader decided that he’d had enough ‘persuasion’ for the first go-round, and he was hauled back to the room with Yinsen. He was trembling hard enough that he could barely keep hold of the car battery, which was still giving him intermittent electric shocks as the water dripped off him.

The terrorists threw him to the ground and slammed the heavy door behind him, laughing. Yinsen hurried over to him, helping to lever him off the ground and over to the cot he’d originally woken up on.

“Here,” he said, slinging a blanket around Tony’s shoulders. “That was foolish of you.”

Tony managed a half-glare at him. “I’m not going to build weapons for terrorists,” he got out through chattering teeth. “Bad enough they have my guns already.”

Yinsen snorted, although not in amusement. He turned away from Tony, back towards the stove where a small saucepan was sitting on top of it. “They’ve had your guns for years, Stark,” he said. “There’s no need to be shy about it _now_.”

Tony watched him as he stirred whatever was in the pan. Yinsen was an older man, clearly in his sixties at least, and he was obviously intelligent, if he’d managed to perform open heart surgery in a cave without killing his patient. “Where do you fit into all of this?” he asked.

“Our illustrious hosts needed someone to assist their Sentinels,” Yinsen told him absently. “I was helping a Sentinel on the outskirts of Gulmira when the Ten Rings came looking for a doctor.”

“You’re a Guide?” Tony perked up slightly at the similarity to Rhodey _(Rhodey was fine, he was going to come bursting in and kick everyone’s ass, he was fine, he was fine, he was_ not _lying injured in the Afghani sands bleeding to death, he was_ not dead _, he was—)_. “Wait, you’re a doctor, too?”

Yinsen glanced over his shoulder and smiled ruefully at him. “No. I am not a Guide, but I have some small ability, as do most people in these parts. I am also not a doctor. Or, at least, not _that_ kind of doctor. We actually met, briefly, once before, at a symposium in Bern in 1999.”

Tony felt a faint blush rise in his cheeks. He was surprised; he thought he’d lost the ability to feel shame long ago. “I, er, don’t remember,” he admitted.

“No, you wouldn’t,” Yinsen agreed, turning from the stove holding two bowls of unidentifiable mush. He handed one to Tony, who had to viciously stomp on the urge to fling it far away from himself. “If I were that drunk, I wouldn’t have been able to stand, let alone give a lecture on integrated circuits like you did. It was impressive.”

“I’d had a lot of practice,” said Tony, and decided that it was a good time to change the subject. “Are there many Sentinels here?”

Yinsen shook his head as he sat down on the upturned box that was the only other off-the-floor place to sit in the room. “Only two,” he said. “And they are not strong, so they rarely zone. Sentinels and Guides tend to be quite rare in this part of the world.”

“Good thing I’m not one, either, then,” Tony remarked, tentatively prodding at the mush.

“Hmm,” Yinsen hummed in agreement, although his gaze on Tony was very shrewd. “Yes. A very good thing.”

* * *

The subtle change began to manifest itself two weeks later. Including the time Tony had been unconscious, he’d been the Ten Rings’ _guest_ for about three and a half weeks, and the torture had started the moment he woke up.

Waterboarding was a daily activity now. Tony was tempted to ask if they’d mind making it twice a day, since that was the only way he ever got anywhere remotely close to clean – not that it helped much, but it was at least _something_.

Slightly more worryingly, he seemed to be becoming immune to the electric shocks that were inevitable. He wasn’t certain if that meant that his body was getting used to the shocks and therefore working around them or if it meant that the car battery was running out of juice and so had less to actually shock him with.

He hoped it was the former option. The latter would be _very_ bad news for him.

He had also neither seen nor heard of anyone who’d been in the convoy with him when it had been attacked. The only prisoners in the Ten Rings’ camp were himself and Yinsen. Which meant it had been almost a month since he’d seen Rhodey.

The uncertainty of whether Rhodey had managed to survive was eating away at him. He couldn’t stop seeing their last moments, when Tony had turned him away from sharing the Humvee. He couldn’t stop _focusing_ on Rhodey’s expression, that supremely unimpressed ‘Are you kidding me?’ look that he’d perfected in the years since MIT, along with, now that Tony was constantly thinking about it, _hurt_.

The thought that their last ever interaction might have hurt Rhodey, even in a small way, was _killing_ him. He wanted to go back and change it, to reach out to clap Rhodey on the shoulder, or even hug him tightly, and say, “I’m sorry. You’re my best friend, and I’m sorry. Don’t leave me.” He dreamt of Rhodey standing there, reaching out to hug _him_ , hearing his voice calling _Tony, Tony_ , and he woke up crying.

Yinsen was kind enough to not mention it, whenever Tony came awake blinking rapidly to dispel the tears from his eyes. Instead, he distracted them both by describing his village and the surrounding area.

Not all of it was pleasant. It was a nasty surprise to Tony to learn that his weapons had been steadily making their way into Afghanistan for at least a decade, maybe more, and were being turned on the very soldiers that they were supposed to protect _(Rhodey)_.

“I thought weapons were your legacy,” said Yinsen one day. “You should be pleased.”

Tony scowled at him. “Of course I’m not _pleased_!” he snapped. “I made those weapons to protect soldiers – _Americans_. They should _not_ be going astray!” He stared down at the bowl of mush that Yinsen was trying to give him. “What is this?” he asked.

“Food,” said Yinsen, sounding puzzled. He glanced down at the bowl himself, then back up at Tony. “The same kind I make whenever they remember to feed us.”

“No, there’s something… different about it.” Tony finally took the bowl – hey, it’d only taken him two and a half weeks to get over a lifelong eccentricity; how about that? People were going to be _thrilled_ – and gave it a tentative sniff. It mostly smelt like the usual mush that came from the oats that was all they were allowed to have, but there was another scent, so faint that Tony couldn’t tell what it was, or even if he really was smelling it. “You sure you’re not trying to poison me with a new recipe?”

Now it was Yinsen’s turn to scowl. “What, you think I put dirt in the same food that I have to share with you?” he asked. “There’s nothing else in there, Stark; just the same over-boiled oats as always.”

“And the bag was unopened?” Tony persisted.

“ _Yes_ ,” said Yinsen, firmly. “Now are you going to eat that, or not?”

“I—” Tony brought a spoonful of the mush up to his mouth but couldn’t bring himself to actually eat it. “No,” he sighed, finally, and handed the bowl over to Yinsen. “Here. There’s something not right.”

Yinsen snorted as he accepted it. “I see. So you will wait to see if I keel over?” he asked.

Tony waved a dismissive hand in the air. “Nah, I’m sure you’ll be fine,” he said. The amusement leaked through in his voice, despite his best attempts at a deadpan expression.

Yinsen opened his mouth, but what he would have said went unheard as they were interrupted by the sound of the bolts on their prison door being drawn back. They both got to their feet, Tony clutching the car battery to his chest protectively, as half a dozen terrorist minions flooded into the room, machine guns up and aimed at them.

The leader – Raza, Tony had heard someone call him – meandered his way casually through them, pushing them aside when they didn’t move fast enough for him. He smiled at Tony and said something jovially.

“He says that you’ve had enough time to be persuaded,” Yinsen obediently translated. “He has something to show you that he thinks will help.” Raza made a beckoning motion as he turned to go. Exchanging helpless glances, Tony and Yinsen had no choice but to follow, the terrorists spreading out and then coming back together behind them to herd them out of the room.

They were led in a different direction than the one Tony was normally dragged down for his daily waterboarding sessions. This tunnel was wider, and sloped upwards, until they abruptly stepped out into blinding sunshine.

Tony winced and brought one hand up to shield his eyes. This was the first time he’d seen the outside world in weeks, and as he squinted around the terrorists’ camp, his breath hitched in surprise and alarm.

They were surrounded by _hundreds_ of cases of Stark weapons. Missiles, assault rifles, machine guns, pistols… All of it stamped with the logo of Tony’s company. When Yinsen had said that his weapons had been coming through the country for a decade, he had imagined a trickle, one here, a couple there, maybe a few more this way. But _this_ … this was more than just opportunistic scavenging of a few stray shipments. This was _deliberate_.

Raza had reached the middle of the camp while Tony was frozen in the entrance to the cave system. He turned to beam at Tony, spreading his arms wide in typical showman style.

“He says,” Yinsen reported, “to look at what they have. All of this can be used to help you build the Jericho missile for them. He wants to know what you think.”

“I think—” Tony took a step away from the entrance, closer to a stack of wooden crates that he knew held _thousands_ of rounds of ammunition. “I think… they’ve got a lot of my weapons.”

“And he thanks you for it,” Yinsen continued, as Raza gave a mocking bow of his head to Tony. “He says you may take what you need for the missile. Once he has that, he will let you go free.”

Tony studied the leader of the Ten Rings, then cast a sideways glance at a pile of missiles. There were almost thirty there, and he was fairly sure it wasn’t the only cache of them. One missile – even the Jericho – was not going to satisfy Raza for long.

However, getting access to the weapons might just allow him to put into action some of the plans that he’d been casually considering.

“No, he won’t,” Tony said to Yinsen, even as he smiled at Raza through gritted teeth and held out a hand to shake.

“No,” Yinsen agreed. “He won’t.”

* * *

Whatever Tony might have thought he’d smelt in the food, it was soon overtaken by the smell of hot metal. Raza was smart enough, in his own way, but neither he nor the rest of his goons had any idea what went into building a missile, especially one as streamlined and explosive as the Jericho. It meant that Tony was free to tear some of the older weapons apart, and create odd-looking bits and pieces, and none of them could naysay him, because none of them knew what they were actually looking at.

“What are you doing?” Yinsen asked, as Tony took apart the first missile and threw most of it away over his shoulder. The older man followed its trajectory with his eyes then turned back to where Tony was teasing apart the inner working that had made the missile go boom.

Tony held up a small piece of something silvery. “This,” he said, “is palladium. 0.15 grams of it. I’ll need 1.6, so we need to break down those other eleven missiles.”

“But what is it _for_?” Yinsen persisted.

Tony gave him a grim smile. “Necessity is the mother of invention,” he said. “Or father, in this case. I’m going to do something my dad was never able to. Miniaturise the arc reactor.”

“Arc reactor?” asked Yinsen.

“Energy source,” Tony clarified. “We’ve got a big one powering Stark Industries’ headquarters in Malibu. This one is going to replace the car battery and act as a pacemaker. And, if my maths is right, which it always is, because _genius_ , it will generate three gigajoules per second.”

Yinsen stared at him. “But… that could run your heart for fifty lifetimes!” he exclaimed.

Tony grinned at him, while subtly shuffling around his plans on the table in front of them. “Or something big for fifteen minutes,” he said, softly.

Yinsen looked down at the papers. At the blueprints that just looked like nonsense when taken individually, with random lines and squiggles going off the page to nowhere, but when put together in a certain way revealed the outline of a suit of armour.

“This,” Tony said, tapping a finger on it, “will be our ticket out of here.”

* * *

“Someone’s coming,” he said, several nights later, without even looking up from the metal he was hammering into shape.

Yinsen, however, _did_ look up. He was sitting close to the stove, teasing small bits of wire out of the missiles to melt them down. He was also closer to the door than Tony was. “I hear nobody,” he said, frowning. “What—” He abruptly cut himself off, turning his head towards the door. “Someone _is_ coming, but how did _you_ know that?” he asked, looking back at Tony.

Tony frowned at himself. “I… do not know,” he replied. “I could just… _tell_ someone was coming this way.” His nose twitched, and he absently rubbed it with the back of his wrist. “Don’t think it’s Raza, either,” he added.

“Stark—” Yinsen began but was interrupted by the door being flung open. Several of the Ten Rings grunts flowed into the room, aiming the ever-present guns at them. This time, however, the person threading their way through them was not Raza.

Tony reluctantly stopped work. If the piece of metal cooled too much, he’d have to scrap it and start all over again, as reheating it could cause the metal to warp.

The strange man was wandering around their workbenches, peering idly at the paperwork and lumps and sheets of metal, occasionally flicking out a finger to nudge a bolt or screw into movement.

“Do you take me for a fool?” he said, eventually, in heavily accented English. “We watch you. Always you are hard at work, always busy, and yet there is still no sign of my missile.”

“ _My_ missile, actually,” Tony muttered under his breath. It seemed that even torture hadn’t knocked the urge to be an asshole out of him. “Do _you_ know how to build a missile?” he asked, in a louder voice, when the man turned to face him. “Obviously you don’t, otherwise you wouldn’t need _me_. It’s very complicated, and very delicate, and unsurprisingly takes a long time for two people to make it _by hand_. This is what we have factories for, okay? So yes, we’re hard at work, very busy, but we’re nowhere near done yet.”

The man smiled. It was not a nice smile, and it sent shivers down Tony’s spine. Under the sweat of his exertions, his skin ran with goose-bumps.

“I think,” the man said, slowly, “that you need some incentive.” He held up a hand and snapped his fingers. Two of the grunts surrounding him lowered their guns and advanced on Yinsen.

“Hey, no, what are you doing, no, no, no!” Tony protested, as the other man was grabbed and forced to his knees next to the stove. “I need him! He’s a good assistant! Let him go!”

_(I can’t lose anyone else. Not after Rhodey. Rhodey, Rhodey, Rhodey. God, I hope you’re okay.)_

The stranger bent down and used a pair of tongs to pick up a red-hot coal from the stove. He approached where Yinsen was struggling in the grip of the other men and held the tongs – and subsequently the burning coal – mere centimetres from Yinsen’s face. The older man’s eyes widened in alarm as he tried his best to rear his head backwards but was prevented by a firm grip on his neck.

“An assistant doesn’t need his tongue,” the terrorist leader said. “Only his hands, yes? To… _assist_ you with.”

“Leave him alone!” Tony shouted in response. “Don’t you touch him!”

The man moved the tongs infinitesimally closer to Yinsen’s mouth.

Abruptly, Tony could smell the stench of burning flesh.

It made him want to retch, to turn away and cover his nose, close his eyes to whatever torture was going to be visited on an innocent man because of _Tony_. It made him want to leap forward, to take a swing with the large hammer he still held at this man who _dared_ to threaten someone that was under Tony’s protection.

And yet he was frozen in place.

He was inhaling steadily, he could feel the air rushing in and out of his lungs, but all of his not-inconsiderable brain power seemed to have been diverted to that horrible, _awful_ smell of human flesh that was getting much hotter than it was supposed to. The very scent of it seemed to be teasing the inside of his nose, dancing around and tickling at the receptors that took smells to the brain. It was filling his nasal cavity, as though it was an actual, physical thing that could take up room. The hot tanginess of the coal _itched_ , as though he’d gotten a sunburn.

“Stark!” he heard someone bark, but he couldn’t spare the brainpower to wonder who they were yelling at. He couldn’t do anything other than trace the way the scent danced with the air current, swirling in sparkling eddies near the stove and disappearing into the opaque darkness the further out it went. “What is happening?”

( _Good question. What… is happening? Where’s Rhodey? Rhodey should be here with me. Where is he? He has to be out there, somewhere. He’s not allowed to be hurt, or dying… or_ dead _. No! Rhodey! You’re not allowed to leave me here, Rhodey! Where are you? I need you now!)_

“He’s Zoned,” someone else was saying, their voice shaking. “He’s a Sentinel.”

“Impossible! He’s a Null!” someone else objected. Possibly the person who’d been yelling the first time, but his eyes weren’t working. His _brain_ wasn’t working – except for his sense of smell. The scent of guns was closer to him now, and he could feel that perhaps he should be worried about that, but he’d grown up around the scent of guns, he’d grown up _making_ guns, the scent of them meant home and childhood and…

_Howard._

Abruptly, the smell of the guns turned rancid in his nose, his hindbrain screaming that _danger, danger_ was everywhere. He couldn’t make sense of anything anymore, and lashed out, desperate to make whatever it was withdraw, to see him as a _threat_ so it’d leave him alone.

Alarmed shouts rose and fell around him, but he couldn’t understand a word of it. Another scent was drawing closer, this one not quite as familiar as the guns had been, but familiar enough that he knew this scent was safe. This scent had to be protected. He manoeuvred it behind himself, unable to see what was coming but _absolutely ready for it._

Yet another scent – this one warm and earthy, somehow desperate and greedy and afraid – gave him a split-second warning, but it wasn’t enough.

A brief flash of wood and metal, and his consciousness blinked out.

* * *

_He dreams of white fog. Of swirls and eddies and absolutely nothing to see for miles and miles in every direction. He isn’t even certain that he’s standing upright. He’s not certain that he’s actually_ standing _on anything at all._

 _There are vague shapes in the fog, only slightly darker than the fog itself. He thinks they’re moving, but they don’t come close enough for him to tell. And whenever he moves towards_ them _, they drift out of his reach, leaving him panting and not at all sure he’s even moved from where he was. Is. Whatever._

_And then he hears it._

_“Tony! Tony, I’m coming for you! Just tell me where you are!”_

_That’s Rhodey! His heart leaps with joy, and he opens his mouth to call back, but then he’s abruptly falling, falling, f-a-l-l-i-n-g_

* * *

Tony woke up with the absolute _mother_ of all hangovers. Not even the ones where he’d been casually mixing and matching the best liquor and the finest powder had ever resulted in a headache quite this bad.

“Stark?” The voice was a quiet murmur, but even that was too loud, and he winced away from it. “Are you awake?”

“No,” he complained, petulantly.

There was a huff of amusement from beside him. Reluctantly, he forced his eyes open. He had to blink several times to get anything to come into focus, which was made even harder by the fact that he was back – _still_ – in the darkened cave with Yinsen. All of the equipment he’d had the Ten Rings bring in for him was powered down, cold and still.

“What happened?” he asked Yinsen.

The older man helped him to sit up and handed over a cup with a small amount of brackish water in it. Tony scrunched his nose up but took a sip of it, feeling it be absorbed by the tissues in his mouth before it ever got near his throat. He took another, longer sip, draining the cup dry.

Yinsen took the cup back but made no move to put it down anywhere. He looked, Tony realised, _nervous_. “What happened?” he repeated, more firmly.

Yinsen fairly obviously braced himself. “You Zoned,” he said, finally.

Tony blinked at him, and then shook his head. “I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” he asked. “I could have sworn you just said I Zoned.”

“I did say that,” Yinsen agreed. “And you did. They were threatening to… _harm_ me, and you abruptly Zoned out and attacked them when they tried to rouse you.”

“But—” Tony’s mouth opened and closed for a few seconds. “But, I’m not a Sentinel,” he protested. “I’m a Null! Verified and everything!”

“Stark. _Tony_ ,” said Yinsen, and Tony paused before he could continue voicing his objections. “I don’t know what has happened in the past, but I’m acquainted with Sentinels and Zones. Whatever you were, you are now a Sentinel.”

Tony hunched in on himself. This was… How could he suddenly become a Sentinel _now_? Sentinels and Guides always came online on their fifteenth birthday, no ifs, ands or buts about it. It was _always_ the day they turned fifteen. And Tony hadn’t. He hadn’t had any spikes in his senses at all, despite being on tenderhooks waiting for one all day. He’d been mostly relieved once midnight had come and gone and his birthday was over with nothing special to show for it. _Howard_ would have been thrilled, but Tony had been glad. He hadn’t _wanted_ to be a Sentinel, or a Guide, either.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” asked Yinsen.

Frowning in concentration, he searched his memory. “I was… working,” he said, slowly. “I was hammering one of the pieces into shape, and then… someone came in. Not Raza. He wasn’t happy about the pace of things.” His gaze drifted over to the stove, and he winced at the remembrance. “They thought we were messing them around, so they threatened you. He was going to burn your tongue out with a hot coal.” His breath sped up at the mere thought of it.

“And then?” Yinsen prodded him.

“And then—” Tony frowned harder, trying to make sense of what he could remember. “Suddenly all I could smell was burning flesh. And I knew that was wrong. There was something else, the scent of guns, and at first that was okay, I know the smell of gunpowder, God knows Howard came home stinking of it enough times, but then…”

“Then you registered it as a threat, and you attacked,” Yinsen finished for him. The doctor sighed and rubbed briefly at his forehead. “You are a scent Sentinel, Tony,” he said, looking up again. “That’s why you thought there was something wrong with the food beforehand.”

Tony shook his head. “If I _was_ actually a Sentinel, then I should have come online when I was fifteen,” he pointed out. “Not _now_. I’m over twice the usual age for it!”

Yinsen spread his hands. “How else do you explain what happened?” he asked. “You Zoned, Stark. Obviously, you are a Sentinel.”

“I _can’t_ be!” Tony got out through gritted teeth. “Somebody would have _noticed_. _I_ would have noticed!”

_(Rhodey would have noticed. Rhodey would have known. Rhodey would have said something. He wouldn’t have left me alone. Not like he has now. He’s left me here, all on my own. Rhodey, where are you! I need you!)_

Yinsen shifted, and finally placed the cup down on the floor. “What were you doing when you were fifteen?” he asked.

Tony shivered, feeling as though eyes were crawling over him. Someone was watching him. Some _thing_ was looking for him. “I was at MIT,” he told Yinsen. “My second year. I was about halfway through my first master’s degree, and sharing a dorm with Rhodey, my best friend. He’s a Guide. He would have _noticed_!”

 _(He’s a Guide. He_ is _a Guide. He’s not lying to waste somewhere out in the middle of the goddamn desert, his life spilt and brown and turned to dust…)_

A clatter at the door interrupted whatever else Yinsen would have said to try and convince him of this ridiculous notion. Both men snapped upright, although Tony needed a lot more assistance than he was happy with.

The usual crowd of gun-toting minions swept in, followed by Raza and the man who’d come before. One side of his face was burnt, red and bubbling. It appeared that he’d been pushed into the stove in all the previous commotion. Tony couldn’t help but feel a sharp burst of glee as he looked at the man’s disfigurement. Whatever had actually happened, that’d teach him to threaten Yinsen with harm.

“We have been lenient with you up until now,” Yinsen translated for Raza. “But no more! You will complete the Jericho missile for us in the next five days, or we will do much worse to your companion than merely threaten his tongue.”

Before Tony could reply, or even react, to the threat, Raza and the injured bigwig had turned and exited the cave, their minions sweeping out behind them. The door slammed shut with an emphatic _bang_.

Yinsen and Tony could only look at each other.

“Now what?” Yinsen asked.

“Our timetable just got pushed up.” Tony glanced around. The argument about whether he was or was not a Sentinel was going to have to wait. “Let’s start everything up again. We’ve got work to do.”

* * *

“I don’t like this. It’s taking too long,” Yinsen fretted, his gaze fixed on the achingly slow loading bar. “Someone is going to come and check on us. They want their missile.”

“ _My_ missile,” Tony pointed out, then shook his head. “Look, forget that for a minute. Forget _them_ out there. You need to help me fasten this.”

Yinsen finally turned to look at him. Tony was half covered in metal plates, held up against a metal frame by several hooks and straps. It was the beginnings of a very bulky suit of armour. A row of rivets down the right hand side hung open. They needed to be drilled shut, and Tony couldn’t reach by himself.

“It doesn’t need to be perfect,” he assured the other man as Yinsen picked up the drill. “Every other one will do.” Yinsen set about fastening the suit, although he apparently couldn’t stop casting anxious glances towards the door, as though he expected the Ten Rings to burst through at any moment.

They’d get a surprise if they did, Tony reflected, casting a quick glance that way himself, although he was at a more awkward angle for it. He’d built a bomb like the terrorists had wanted, but considering it was now attached to the door and set to go off when it opened, then he didn’t think they’d appreciate it.

“This is taking too long,” repeated Yinsen. He turned his head to look at the loading bar again. Tony wasn’t surprised that the programmes necessary to run the suit were taking so long; after all, it wasn’t as if the terrorists had given them the most up-to-date computer equipment. “We need more time.”

“No, we don’t,” Tony told him. “The time we have is fine. Just keep going. Every other one.” There was a sudden burst of noise from the other side of the door. A voice rose in question. “Answer them,” he prodded Yinsen.

The other man looked at him helplessly. “They’re speaking Hungarian,” he said. “I don’t speak Hungarian.”

“Then tell them to wait a moment in whatever language you _do_ speak,” said Tony.

Another burst of chatter, even louder now, and more strident demands. The door shuddered as the men outside attempted to gain access and discovered it blocked. There was a pause, then a loud thump, and the bomb attached to the door exploded. The cloud of dust and grit and bits of wood didn’t quite reach them, but they winced away anyway.

Yinsen fastened another rivet and looked back at the small monitor. “We need more time,” he said again, more firmly, his expression turning determined. “I will get you more time.”

“What?” Tony craned his neck as far as he could as Yinsen abruptly took off running towards the gaping hole in the rock that had been their prison door not two minutes before, scooping up one of the goons’ rifles on the way. “No, Yinsen, come back! No, no, no, _Yinsen_!” He twisted back to look at the loading bar that was still too far away from the end for his liking. “Come on, _come on_!” he urged it.

He could hear Yinsen yelling in the corridor outside, just random nonsense meant to overcome the enemy with the loudness of it. The crack of machine gun fire followed, although Tony had no way of knowing if it was Yinsen firing or the Ten Rings’ men.

The old computer gave a cheerful little beep as it finally finished downloading all the electronics into the suit. With a whir, everything around Tony came to life.

“Finally!” he exclaimed, and took a step forward, tugging himself free from the metal frame. The suit was big and bulky, and awkward as all hell to move in. He was thankful that he’d put such powerful hydraulics in it, because there was no way he would have been able to move this thing under his own steam. “Yinsen!” he shouted as he scooped up the helmet and jammed it over his head. “Hang on! I’m coming!”

_(“Tony…” breathed through his mind. “I’m coming for you. Hold on…”)_

Tony stomped his way through the cave and into the corridor. Several of the Ten Rings grunts were lying crumpled on the floor, bleeding heavily. Loud gunfire came from further down, and Tony couldn’t help but follow it. Even if it wasn’t the way out, that was likely the direction where Yinsen was, and the other man needed help.

He rounded a corner and walked right into a hail of bullets. He cringed, but they only bounced off his armour and ricocheted back across the corridor. The goons ducked, but at least one was injured, going by the high-pitched scream he let out. The rest of them scrambled backwards, until they were able to slam shut a heavy door that Tony hadn’t realised was there. The injured man scrabbled backwards down the corridor but was too slow; caught on the side with a slowly advancing suit of armour, he weakly clawed at the door, screaming for his fellows on the other side to open it.

Unsurprisingly, they did not.

Tony solved that problem, though, by raising his arm and firing one of his short-range missiles at it. The door – and the terrorist – disintegrated in a flash of bright light that shook the corridor. Dust rained down on him, but didn’t obscure the row of rifles that greeted Tony when he managed to clamber through the debris.

“ _Fire!_ ” someone further back yelled, and the gun muzzles all lit up simultaneously.

He whipped up his arm in front of his face – ricochets were tricky things, and he didn’t want someone to get a lucky shot by having a bullet bounce up into the open eye slots in his helmet – and for the second time, weathered a storm of bullets. Once they were all done, the terrorists ran yet again.

The next room Tony entered was a storeroom, and he froze as soon as he set foot in it. He’d finally caught up to Yinsen.

Who had fallen across a pile of oat bags and was bleeding heavily from several points.

“Yinsen,” Tony breathed, and clattered his way over. “Just… hang on,” he ordered the other man. “Hang on, I’ll just finish these ones off and then we can patch you up.”

“Stark,” Yinsen gasped, and shook his head. “It’s too late for me. You have to go, now.”

It was more than awkward, but Tony leant against the wall beside Yinsen’s head, tilting himself at an angle, and levered the faceplate up. He could _smell_ the blood, smell each pulse of it decorate the air even further with its taint. “No,” he told Yinsen. “You’ll be fine. You just need to hang on a little longer. After all, what about your family? They’ll be waiting for you!”

Yinsen took a slow breath, and more blood bubbled at the corners of his mouth. “My family’s already dead,” he said, slowly. “This was always the plan.” He reached up and shakily rested a hand against the helmet. “Don’t waste your life, Stark,” he said, softly, and then his breath went out of him in a rattle. His hand limply fell away.

Tony could do nothing but stare at Yinsen – at Yinsen’s _body_ – for several moments. The terrorists were yelling something from somewhere close by, but he was deaf to them. Yinsen was dead. This man, who had done nothing but be in the wrong place at the wrong time yet had saved him anyway, was dead. He’d been trying to protect Tony, to _help_ him.

Tony would have much preferred it if he’d saved himself.

A feeling of numbness was trying to creep up him, but it was being swiftly overwhelmed by a feeling of absolute _rage_. How _dare_ they kill such a good man! How _dare_ they _steal_ Tony’s weapons, and think that gave them the right to demand that he build them _more_!

A bullet pinged off of the armour’s shoulder. Tony slowly straightened up, lowered his faceplate, and turned to face them all. They couldn’t see the look on his face, but they paused for a second anyway.

That second was all he needed. Guns in the shoulders, guns in one forearm and flamethrower in the other; he activated them all, and strode out of the cave system, sweeping death over them all left and right.

The grunts were attempting to hide behind the large caches of weapons. Unsurprisingly, they did not stand up against Tony’s own weapons and began to explode, taking out both the men and the parts of the camp they were stored in. There was apparently a gas tank or two hidden extremely close nearby, as there was an abrupt roar of displaced air, and a massive fireball shot skywards.

There were now only one or two of the Ten Rings left alive, but they were trying their best to put a stop to Tony’s rampage. Huffing in disgust as a stray bullet caught the fuel line running up the back of his left calf, Tony kicked his feet together. The rockets he’d built into the boots burst into life, and he wobbled into the air.

Once he was about ten feet in the air, he glanced down at the remains of the camp that were burning merrily away. Just to ensure that no little ant got missed, he triggered one of his remaining shoulder missiles. He didn’t bother to watch it land, or explode, but instead turned in a shaky circle and boosted the flare of his rocket boots.

He had a Rhodeybear to find.

* * *

He didn’t get much further than past the mountain. Of course, the suit had never been designed to fly so he considered it a miracle that he had managed to land _over_ the mountain rather than _in_ it.

Mind, calling it ‘landing’ was a bit of a misnomer…

What actually happened was that he found himself over a spread of sand and then the suit lost power, so he discovered the hard way that the sand wasn’t as soft as it appeared to be.

He remained lying on his back for a few minutes, stunned and winded and spitting sand out of the corner of his mouth. He’d done it; he was free! He just wished that he’d been able to bring Yinsen with him as well.

Eventually, he began to get cold, and he realised that the sun was setting alarmingly fast. It had been desperately cold in the cave at night, but he wasn’t certain how much the cave had protected them. It was time to get moving.

He forced himself upright, shaking off the remnants of the suit of armour. He frowned as he looked down at the pieces of metal. He would much rather take it all with him, just in case there were any Ten Rings members still around – or, indeed, anyone else – that might decide it was worth something, but the trouble was he couldn’t carry it. It was just too heavy.

Reluctantly, he came to the conclusion that he would have to leave it here for the time being and hope that when – _if_ – he got rescued, he’d be able to find the place again to retrieve it all.

Once he’d kicked some more sand over it to hopefully hide it for longer, he turned to examine his surroundings. Aside from the mountain behind him, all he could otherwise see was sand. He had no idea where he was, or where he should go, but he had to make a move somewhere.

“Eenie, meenie, miney,” he murmured to himself, and decided to strike out to the right.

The sand was incredibly awkward to walk on, and he ended up doing more of a shuffle than an actual walk. He fell into a rhythm rather quickly and was completely surprised to look up what felt like only an hour later to discover that the mountains behind him were now so far back that he could barely see the tops of them. It took him a little while longer to realise that it was now full dark, and he shouldn’t be able to see the mountains _anyway_.

Instead, once he’d blinked a couple of times to bring his brain back into focus, he realised that the desert around him was almost glowing in the moonlight. The stars above were so much brighter than he’d ever seen them before and were a stark contrast to the deep navy blue of the sky.

“Wow!” he breathed, tipping his head back so far he almost went over backwards. This was… magnificent! Absolutely breath-taking, and so stunningly romantic that he couldn’t believe he’d never thought to bring a date out into the desert before.

_(Rhodey. Rhodey, where are you? Have you seen this? Are you seeing it now? I’ll bring you out here, Rhodey. You just have to come find me._

_“Tony… Tell me where you are…”)_

“Second star to the right, and straight on ‘til morning,” he said, grinning to himself as he watched a particularly bright star twinkle merrily down at him.

_(“That’s Neverland, you bonehead. Try again.”)_

Sighing wistfully, Tony forced himself to begin trudging onwards again. The night had gone cold enough that the exercise was keeping him warm. He had no idea if he was even heading in the right direction – didn’t even know what the right direction _was_ – but he had to keep moving. He had to get back to civilisation, to avenge Yinsen, and those soldiers in the Humvee, and all those who’d ever ended up on the wrong end of his weapons _(Rhodey…)_.

He also had to make sure that the misappropriation of his weapons _stopped_. Someone, somewhere, had to be making a fortune off of him, and that just couldn’t continue. Not like this. He and Pepper and Obie would have to go digging, root out the mole that had obviously dug down into his company. He would teach them that it didn’t pay to try an end run around Tony Stark.

Time seemed to flow oddly, in fits and starts, and it seemed no time at all before the sun was coming up again. He was still shuffling through the sand, but now he had to keep stopping to adjust the rags he’d wrapped himself in as the sun rose higher and higher, and the temperature rose until he felt like he was being cooked right the way through.

Oddly enough, the hotness had a _smell_. One which got stuck in Tony’s nose, until it felt like his nasal passages were stuffed. Not even wrapping the remains of his shirt around his head helped.

“One out of ten, definitely would _not_ do this again,” he panted as he struggled to climb up yet another sand dune. He didn’t know what time it was, couldn’t make a reasonable guess as his brain felt like half-melted ice cream, but he had the vague thought it might finally be past noon, as the sun wasn’t _quite_ shining right down on him like an overexcited spotlight anymore.

He lifted a foot to begin the trek – slide – down the dune, but paused. His nose twitched, and he absently rubbed it with the back of his wrist. Something wasn’t right; something had changed.

_(“Hold on, Tony! We’re coming! We’re almost there. I feel you…”)_

“What the hell?” he exclaimed out loud, unable to keep his incredulity in. “Is that _oil_?”

It was definitely something. Tony couldn’t have described the difference if he’d tried for a hundred years, but it certainly wasn’t just the same hotness he’d had stuffed up his nose for the last however many hours. Whatever he could smell, it was coming closer and closer, and the nearer it got to him, the more mechanical the scent became.

He frowned to himself. “That’s a helicopter,” he abruptly realised, and frowned harder. “What’s a helicopter doing this far out in the desert?”

_(“Looking for your dumb ass, what’d you think? How was the funvee?”)_

This time, the thought was so plainly _not Tony’s_ that he gasped, and his head came up like a hunting dog’s, searching the sky. “Rhodey!” he mouthed. “Rhodey…”

_(He’s safe, he’s ALIVE, he’s **here** , oh god, Rhodey, Rhodey, Rhodey, you’re okay, you’re safe, where the FUCK have you been?!)_

The relief swamped him so deeply that he couldn’t tell if it belonged to him, or Rhodey, or both of them.

After a frantic few minutes squinting into the sky, Tony finally spotted the small dark dot that was the approaching helicopter. Even _knowing_ that it was heading straight for him, he couldn’t help jumping – or bouncing, really – up and down, waving his arms above his head as though there was some chance that they’d skim right over him.

“Hey!” he yelled as the machine grew closer and closer. “Rhodey! Hey, I’m here!”

The helicopter was coming lower; clouds of sand were beginning to rise and swirl in the down draft from the propellers. Obviously afraid of getting stuck in the sand, it came to a slow hover some five feet above the ground and some distance away from where Tony was still waving his arms like a madman.

He could see several soldiers dressed in desert camouflage dropping out of the helicopter’s side door and beginning to trudge their way across the sand to him, but it wasn’t until the lead soldier began to run towards him that Tony _finally_ let out a sob of relief and collapsed to his knees.

“Rhodey!” he gasped out loud. “Rhodey! Oh, god…”

“Tony!” was breathlessly shouted in return, as the soldier scrambled up the last dune to reach him. “Tones! Oh my god, Tony!” Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes slid to his knees in front of Tony, desperately grabbing for him. “Tony!”

“Rhodey!” Tony flung his arms around his friend, holding on just as tightly as Rhodey was, as if they were trying to meld into one being. “Thank god! Rhodey!” He ducked his head against Rhodey’s shoulder, pressing his nose firmly against his friend’s neck. He inhaled deeply, and the scent of _warm_ and _friend_ and _home_ washed over him, settling something inside that Tony hadn’t realised was disturbed. “Rhodey,” he murmured again.

Rhodey hugged him even tighter and rested his chin on top of Tony’s head. “Next time, you ride with me, you hear?” he said, firmly. Tony could only close his eyes as he nodded. “Next time,” Rhodey repeated, softer, “you ride with me.”

* * *

The ride back to the army base proved that it would have taken Tony days, if not _weeks_ , to get himself back to civilisation. He spent the ride leaning as close to Rhodey as he could, clutching the other man’s hand as if he’d disappear when Tony wasn’t looking.

Rhodey wasn’t arguing; in fact, he was clutching back just as tightly, and he was obviously using his empathic senses too, as Tony felt like he was cocooned in a soft, warm blanket.

Not that Tony was complaining about that. He didn’t want to let Rhodey get too far away from him ever again, and if that meant constantly feeling surrounded by the other man’s warmth, then he was okay with that.

When they landed at the base, nobody paid much attention to them, although the few soldiers that were nearby gave a ragged cheer as Tony dropped out of the helicopter. He gave them all a shaky grin and threw up the hand that wasn’t grasping for Rhodey into a peace sign.

Almost immediately, he was reminded of that long ago day back in the Humvee, when he’d made the same sign for the picture with the soldier. No doubt the phone was now buried beneath the sand. Tony was quite relieved at the thought. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to stand any reminders of just what an _ass_ he’d been for so very long.

“What is it?” Rhodey asked under his breath as he hustled Tony along to one of the buildings. He’d obviously felt the shift in Tony’s emotions.

“I just—” Tony had to pause and breathe through the surge of sheer _regret_. Rhodey’s grip tightened on him. “I was taking a photo with one of the kids in the Humvee with me when… When. I was throwing a peace sign.” He blinked rapidly as they entered the building, the shade blinding after so long in the bright sunshine. The cooler air was nice, though, and he gave a small sigh of relief. “Sorry,” he added, belatedly.

Rhodey shook his head. “Nope, no need for that,” he said. “We found them all, once the attack was over. They were doing their duty, what they signed up for. We sent them all home.”

Rhodey had always been a military man, long before he actually signed up, so perhaps he understood that frame of mind better than Tony did, because Tony rather thought they shouldn’t have died at all, let alone considered it ‘duty’. It hadn’t been their duty to babysit him, to be close enough to him that jealous, greedy terrorists had been able to take them out by using his own weapons that should have protected them instead.

But… it was an old argument between them, brought up anew every time that Tony tried to propose something that was more for defence, rather than blowing things up. They’d learnt to agree to disagree on the matter.

“Mr Stark!” a voice called from further up the corridor. Rhodey tugged him in that direction. “It’s good to see they found you. I’m Doctor Mason. If you’d like to step in here, then I can give you a quick look over.”

“Ah… Sure, I guess,” Tony agreed, hesitantly. He knew he needed to be looked over – at the very least, the trek through the desert had to have dehydrated him – but he wasn’t certain he wanted anyone to see the thing that was now stuck in his chest. No, correction; he _was_ certain he didn’t want anyone to see it. It was technology that no one had seen before – even if anyone here had visited the SI headquarters in Malibu and seen the large arc reactor there, they’d not seen it on this scale, certainly – and he didn’t want people poking and prodding at it. At him.

“Oh, er, if you wouldn’t mind waiting outside, Lieutenant Colonel?” Doctor Mason suggested as Tony made to step past him.

“Even if he wouldn’t, I would,” Tony said. He tightened his grip on Rhodey even further, just in case the doctor decided to try and forcibly shut him out. “You can say whatever you have to say to both of us.”

The doctor frowned mildly at him. “But—” he began.

“He’s staying with me,” insisted Tony. “If he goes, I go.”

“Such a drama queen,” said Rhodey under his breath, but the warm feeling surrounding Tony snuggled tighter, and he knew his friend was just as determined as Tony was to not be separated for a while. A _long_ while.

Tony couldn’t help but grin over his shoulder at Rhodey as he came to a halt in front of the examining chair. Doctor Mason was still standing in the room’s doorway. “Well?” Tony asked him. “Are we doing this now or not?”

The doctor sighed. “Oh, very well,” he acquiesced. “But this really should be done in private.”

Rhodey snorted as Tony hopped up onto the chair. “Man doesn’t know what the word privacy means,” he said. “Haven’t had a moment of it since he was fourteen.”

“Excuse _you_ , is it _my_ fault you kept barging in on me?” Tony retorted.

“In _my_ bedroom?” Rhodey raised an eyebrow at him. “Yes; yes, it is your fault.”

Tony was fairly certain that he saw Doctor Mason roll his eyes at them, but the man was turning away towards the desk, gathering up his stethoscope and a file of paperwork. “Right, shirt off, please,” the doctor requested absently, scrabbling in a desk drawer for a pen.

Instantly, Tony’s humour fell away. Rhodey straightened in alarm, feeling it, but Tony shook his head. “Sorry, doc, stripping isn’t on the cards today,” he said. He’d managed, by some great fortune, to cover his chest well enough that the glow of the arc reactor wasn’t a visible beacon, otherwise he’d not be getting away with this. Rhodey had had the best view of it when they’d first found Tony, but he hadn’t demanded an explanation as Tony had hastily donned his shirt again to cover it before being assisted into the helicopter.

Doctor Mason straightened up and frowned at him. “But I need it out of the way to give you a check-up,” he pointed out.

“Nope.” Tony shook his head again. “Shirt is _not_ coming off; you can do that stuff on top of it. Or lift the back if you really need to.”

“Mr Stark,” Mason said, firmly. “I really must insist that you remove your shirt. You’ve been missing for three months—”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Wow, really, never would have guessed it was that long,” he said, and was only half joking. He hadn’t realised that so much time had gone by. “But I’m still not taking off my clothes for you, we don’t know each other well enough yet for that.”

 _“Never stopped you before,”_ Rhodey murmured, quietly, and Tony turned to glare at him.

“You, quiet,” he ordered, pointing a finger at Rhodey, who held up his hands in surrender – or hand, as Tony was still clutching one of them – before pointing the same finger at the doctor. “You can either do whatever on _top_ of my shirt, or we can leave. Right now. No skin off my nose.” He gave the doctor one of his best press smiles. It felt even faker than it usually did.

Unsurprisingly, faced with a stubborn Tony Stark, the doctor had no choice but to give in. He obviously wasn’t happy about it, but the presence of Rhodey prevented him from doing anything other than lifting the back of Tony’s shirt a bit forcefully.

“Sunburn, a touch of sunstroke, dehydration, malnutrition, third degree burns, lacerations and contusions, and a sprained wrist,” was his verdict.

Relieved, Tony hopped off the exam table and hauled Rhodey after him towards the door. He could feel Rhodey’s relief too, and knew that his friend had been worried that the terrorists had dealt him lasting damage.

“You know,” Rhodey said, as Tony ploughed them down the hall in search of somewhere with a door that closed, “I’m fairly certain you should be heading for a debrief right about now.”

Tony shook his head as he stuck it into a room that looked empty. “Anyone in here?” he called, and when there was no response, he tugged Rhodey inside and slammed the door shut behind them both.

“Wha…?” was as far as Rhodey got before Tony was slamming into him, clinging tightly to his friend. Surprised, but relatively used to this, Rhodey just hugged him back equally as tightly.

It would take far too long, Tony reckoned, to get his fill of Rhodey’s presence now, and so he eventually shifted so that he could look up at the other man. “Why didn’t you ever tell me I’m a Sentinel?” he asked.

Rhodey gaped at him, mouth opening and closing but no words coming out.

“You didn’t know,” Tony realised. That was a relief. He’d been vaguely worried that Rhodey _had_ noticed but just hadn’t told him for whatever reason. “Surprise!” he added. “I’m a Sentinel now.”

Rhodey stepped back to examine his face but kept his hands on Tony’s shoulders. “What are you talking about?” he asked. “How can you be a Sentinel?”

Tony shrugged, careful not to dislodge Rhodey’s touch. “No idea,” he admitted. “But while I was… in the Ten Rings’ pleasurable company—” He wrinkled his nose in disgust. “—something happened to me, and one day, I just… Zoned.” He shrugged again. “Apparently I’m a scent Sentinel now.”

“But you’re not fifteen,” his friend pointed out. “We would have noticed!”

“That’s what _I_ said!” Tony exclaimed, pointing finger guns at Rhodey for emphasis. “Over and over again. But _something_ happened to me; I can’t deny that.”

“Okay.” Rhodey backed off, moving around Tony and beginning to pace the room. “Okay. We just need to get you back to the States, and after a few days’ rest, if it happens again, then there’s plenty of doctors over there.”

“And if it doesn’t, we ignore it?” wondered Tony. He wanted to agree with this, but his life just didn’t go that way, not anymore. Although… he’d never had an issue before Afghanistan. Never had even an _inkling_ that he might be a Sentinel. Perhaps it was just something that the Ten Rings had done to him – _although_ , on the _other_ hand, they had seemed just as surprised by his ‘Zone’ as he’d been.

Maybe it had been something _Yinsen_ had done? Tony didn’t want to think badly of the man who had saved his life, but the first indication of something wrong had come when he was alone with Yinsen, when he was faced with the food that _Yinsen_ had prepared. And Yinsen _had_ said that he’d had some small Guide ability, enough to work with Sentinels…

“We just ignore it,” Rhodey agreed. He came to a halt in front of Tony again. “I’m glad you’re okay, though,” he admitted, and drew Tony back into his arms.

“Me, too,” Tony whispered into his shoulder. “Me, too.”

* * *

With nothing medical to hold him back, a flight back to the States was quickly arranged for him and Rhodey, who had argued that, as liaison between the Air Force and Stark Industries, it was his _duty_ to see that the CEO of the company made it safely back to where he should be. After all, the lieutenant colonel had pointed out, they’d already lost him once; they didn’t want to repeat their mistake now, did they?

Like he’d known they would, the brass had capitulated, and now Tony and Rhodey were both standing in the empty belly of a plane that was taxiing to a halt on the runway at the Edwards Air Force Base.

Tony had been amusing himself by rolling through the large space in the wheelchair that had kindly – if unnecessarily – been provided for him. It was ridiculous, he’d complained to Rhodey. He’d sprained his _wrist_ , not his ankle.

“Will you be staying Stateside long?” he asked, finally pushing himself out of the chair. The motion of the plane caused it to roll further away from him.

Rhodey smirked at him. “I can probably stretch a week,” he said.

“Good.” Tony nodded, absently. “There’s work that needs to be done. There’s a mole in the company, Rhodey.”

“What?” Rhodey squinted at him. “You sure you’re okay, man?” he asked, sounding concerned. “No head injury you didn’t tell me about?”

Tony waved that off with the hand that wasn’t trussed up in a sling. “I’m serious, platypus,” he said. “Someone at SI is selling weapons under the table. The Ten Rings had _hundreds_ of ‘em.”

Rhodey folded his arms and considered the matter. “If that’s true,” he said, slowly, “then you shouldn’t go in all guns blazing.”

“They have _my weapons_ , Rhodey,” Tony said through gritted teeth. “They’re out there using _my goddamn weapons_ to kill our soldiers!”

“And they tried to kill _you_ ,” Rhodey pointed out, unfolding his arms to place a hand on Tony’s shoulder. He gave it a small shake. “Don’t go in guns blazing,” he repeated. “You need to be stealthy, so you can find out how far the rot goes.”

“Okay, yeah, good point,” Tony admitted. He patted Rhodey’s back. “Knew all those years at boot camp were good for something.”

“Excuse _you_ ,” Rhodey objected laughingly, giving him a minor shove. The plane finally halted at that point, and the rear doors began to ponderously open. “Here, hey…” he said, half turning to look at something behind Tony.

Tony turned himself, spotted the stretcher that was being helpfully pushed at him, and turned back round again. “Nope,” he said, firmly. “Are you kidding me? Come on! I’m capable of walking, you know! It’s just a sprained wrist.”

Rhodey rolled his eyes but waved the stretcher-pusher away. As the ramp finally touched the ground, he took hold of Tony’s elbow to guide him down it.

“Still don’t need the help,” Tony murmured to him.

“Oh, just… shut up,” Rhodey responded, but didn’t remove his hand.

Tony didn’t bother objecting again, but was still careful about where he put his feet as they moved down the ramp to US ground. Tony’s assistant, Pepper Potts, was waiting patiently for him in front of one of SI’s cars. She’d chosen Happy Hogan, Tony’s favourite bodyguard, as their driver. Tony couldn’t help smiling at both of them. Pepper smiled back, but with a typical redhead complexion, it was obvious that she’d been crying in the not so distant past.

“What’s this?” Tony joked as he and Rhodey came to a halt in front of her. “Tears for your long lost boss?”

Pepper gave a delicate sniff. “Just glad I don’t have to go jobhunting anymore,” she replied. “It’s so hard finding places that meet my standards.”

“Can’t have that, can we?” agreed Tony. He gestured at the car. “Shall we? Hey, Happy!” he added, as Pepper turned to open the back door for him.

“Mr Stark,” Happy replied, giving a solemn nod of greeting. “Glad to see you’re alright.”

“I shall be _better_ than alright,” protested Tony, sliding into the car. “As soon as I get a cheeseburger,” he added.

Pepper slid in on the other side of him just in time to hear his words and scowled at him. “No, take us to the hospital, Happy,” she ordered.

“Nope, no way. I already got checked out.” Tony made an aborted gesture with the sling-wrapped arm for emphasis. “I need you to call a press conference,” he added, as Rhodey slid in beside him and closed the door. “Big one, big as you can. Although first – drive-thru, Happy!” he called. “I am _dying_ for a cheeseburger!”

Rhodey rolled his eyes. _“You and your cheeseburgers,”_ he murmured.

Pepper was already shaking her head. “Tony, no,” she protested. “What do you want to call a press conference for? You’ve just got back; you should be resting. Mr Stane and I can announce your return.”

Tony shook his own head in return as the car began moving away from the stationary plane. “It’s not about that,” he informed her. He debated insisting she wait until the press conference to find out, but really, that wasn’t _entirely_ fair. “I’m going to be stopping all weapons production,” he admitted. “Effective immediately,” he added, over her shocked gasp.

Rhodey had stiffened beside him. “Guns blazing, man,” he warned.

“This has to be done. We’ll complete all current contracts,” Tony assured him, nudging his friend with his shoulder. “But no new ones, as of this minute.”

“Tony, you… you can’t _do_ that!” Pepper protested. “You need to discuss the matter with the board, or at the very least with Mr Stane! This is _millions_ of dollars you’re talking about just… just… just _throwing away_!”

Tony scowled at her. “I’m not going to be throwing away anything,” he said, firmly. “Least of all the lives of American soldiers.” He ignored Pepper’s confused _‘What?’_. “People seem to forget that SI doesn’t just do weapons. I think it’s about time we started looking at expanding the electronics division, and the medical research, too. People are getting _tired_ of war, Pep. _I’m_ getting tired of it, and now that I’ve seen just what harm my weapons are doing? No, it stops. Right here and right now. No more.”

Pepper eyed him dubiously, then turned to Rhodey. “Did he hit his head?” she asked him.

Tony had to close his eyes and count backwards from twenty. Rhodey leaned in against him, pressing their shoulders together. Tony took a deep breath and opened his eyes, managing to look at Pepper without outright scowling at her or yelling at her.

“No, I did not hit my head,” he informed her, far more calmly than he felt internally. “But I saw what was happening out there. I saw that the terrorists, the very people we’re fighting against, have _my weapons_. Those weapons are supposed to be keeping our troops safe, and instead someone out there is making a profit on their lives. This is _my_ company, those are _my_ weapons, it is _my responsibility_ to know what is being done in my name. I’ve been neglecting that, but that stops _right now_. No more weapons, Pepper. If the board, or Obie – or even you – don’t like that, then tough. There’s the door; you can find somewhere else. I have enough blood on my hands.”

A shocked silence fell once he finished speaking, and it was accompanied by a faint, bitter smell that Tony finally realised was coming from Pepper. He didn’t have time for that, he firmly reminded himself, and stomped the realisation down to deal with later. _Much_ later.

“I—” Pepper began, then stopped again and studied Tony carefully. “You’re serious,” she finally said, and the surprise in her voice was honestly insulting.

Or, it _would_ have been, if Tony hadn’t been acutely aware that, just months ago, he _wouldn’t_ have been serious about this. He wouldn’t have even thought of it to make a joke of. He just… hadn’t thought.

“Yes,” he said to her. “I am serious. More so than I’ve ever been before. There were young soldiers – young men and women with their whole lives ahead of them – who were killed by a weapon with my name on, and I didn’t know about it. That has to change, Pep. That _will_ change. If I can’t keep our troops safe, then what’s the point?”

Pepper continued to stare at him, before sighing heavily and slumping back in her seat. She glanced at Rhodey. “I suppose you can’t talk him out of it?” she asked, but not in a way that expected an actual answer.

Rhodey gave her one anyway.

“Tony is his own man,” he reminded her. “It’s his company, his name, his _reputation_ on the line. He’s been lucky so far that he’s got other people to keep SI running the way it does, but ultimately it all comes down to him. And if he feels that something about that needs to change, then it’s his decision. No matter whether we agree or not, we just have to support him.”

“Thanks for that. I think,” said Tony, dryly. “So glad to know I’ve got your unconditional support, platypus.”

Rhodey pressed his shoulder harder against Tony’s. “You just said you don’t want yes-men anymore,” he pointed out, grinning.

“Well, I guess a _few_ yes-men couldn’t hurt,” he shot back, then turned back to Pepper, whose mouth had pressed itself into a thin line. His PA was obviously not happy with him, but Rhodey had been right; ultimately, it was his decision. “So, press conference?” he said.

Pepper sighed and reluctantly began tapping away on her phone. “I’ll set things rolling,” she informed him. “But _you_ have to explain things to Mr Stane!”

“Sure,” Tony agreed blithely. “No problem!”

* * *

“Tony, what the hell are you doing?” Obadiah Stane hissed in his ear as he forcefully hustled Tony away from the crowd of reporters who were all clamouring after them. “You can’t just announce things like that! You have to take the time to think things over!”

“I have done,” Tony snapped at him, shrugging his erstwhile godfather off as they reached the doors leading outside again. “I’ve done nothing _but_ think for three months, Obie, and I’ve made up my mind. SI weapons are being stolen from us and sold under the table to _terrorists_! They’re being used against _our troops_! And it stops, right now!”

“Tony, Tony, Tony!” Obadiah reached for his shoulder again, but Tony managed to avoid it by turning to look the older man in the eyes. “You’re just a little shaken by your ordeal, that’s all,” Obadiah continued. “Once you’ve had a chance to settle back in and get your head on straight again—”

“My head _is_ on straight! It’s on straighter than it’s ever been!” barked Tony, glaring at Obadiah. “And may I remind you, Obie, that I am still CEO of SI; if I want to change the direction we go in, then I can do!”

Obadiah paused and eyed him in a way that made the hair on the back of Tony’s neck stand up and quiver in alarm. It wasn’t a look he’d ever seen on Obadiah before, at least, not aimed at _him_. It was the flat look of a shark that Obadiah sometimes gave to uppity businessmen who thought they were better than SI.

“You still have a board of directors,” Obadiah pointed out, finally. His voice was much lower than it had been just a few minutes ago, and much less jovial. “I’m sure _they_ still have a say in it, too. But as a show of faith… why not show them _that_?” He pointed at Tony’s chest.

 _He means the arc reactor!_ Tony flinched back, barely preventing himself from clapping a hand over the reactor. _Who told him about that?_ Rhodey was the only person who knew about it so far, and even if he’d been so inclined, he hadn’t had a chance to speak with Obadiah before the press conference, so how did Obadiah know?

“No,” he said, firmly. “No one is getting this. I mean it, Obie; this is not for sale.”

Obadiah raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure about that?” he asked. “Could help get the board off your back for a bit.”

“Nope, this one stays with me,” Tony insisted. He cast a quick glance around for Happy and the car, or Rhodey, or even Pepper. He was beginning to get uncomfortable, which he never had before in the presence of his godfather, and it was obviously driving him crazy – his sense of smell was increasing again. Obadiah’s cologne – which he hadn’t noticed before now – was beginning to clog his nose, bringing with it a deeply buried hint of fire and metal and something that Tony vaguely identified with the bigwig of the Ten Rings group.

_(Rhodey, where the hell are you when I need a rescue!_

_“Tony…? What have you gotten yourself into **now** …?”) _

As though answering his prayers – or responding to his thoughts – Rhodey chose that moment to emerge from the building himself, shaking off persistent reporters who wanted to know what the United States Air Force thought of SI’s abrupt decision, and had they even known about it, and what were they going to do without Stark weaponry after so long?

“Ugh, parasites,” Rhodey complained as he finally managed to dodge the last one and halted at Tony’s side.

“I think you mean piranhas,” Tony corrected, unable to stop himself from swaying sideways to bump shoulders. The instant they touched, his stress level lowered, and Rhodey’s empathic shields immediately wrapped themselves around him again, leaving Tony feeling warm and protected and safe.

“Whatever they are, they’re a damn nuisance,” conceded Rhodey. He nodded at Obadiah but swiftly returned his attention to Tony. It was, Tony realised, what he’d always done. Why had he never noticed that his best friend didn’t like Obadiah?

 _“You did, you just ignored it_ ,” Rhodey murmured.

“No, I didn’t. Did I?” Tony asked.

Obadiah gave him an odd look, then reached out to clap a hand on Tony’s shoulder. “Why don’t you go home and get some more rest?” he suggested. “Rhodes here can go with you. Pep and I’ll deal with things here, get some sort of order going.”

“Sure,” agreed Tony, a bit breathily as Obadiah’s grip tightened until Tony had the hysterical thought that the other man was trying to dislocate his shoulder. “You go… do that. I’ll go. Rest.”

Rhodey slung an arm around Tony’s shoulders in a move that looked utterly casual but still managed to knock Obadiah’s hand away. “C’mon,” he said. “Happy parked the car over this way.”

“Thanks,” Tony murmured as soon as they were out of Obadiah’s earshot. “I needed the rescue.”

“I know,” Rhodey agreed. “I heard you.”

Tony blinked at him. “Uh, what?” he asked. “Heard me when?”

 _“When you wondered where I was when you needed a rescue_ ,” said Rhodey, except Tony was still looking right at him, and _Rhodey’s mouth didn’t move._ “Took you long enough,” Rhodey said out loud, his mouth turning up into a smirk.

Tony stopped dead, and then almost fell over when Rhodey, with his arm still around Tony’s shoulders, kept going. “What?” he demanded, once he’d steadied himself. “What the fuck? Rhodey, what the hell?! How long has that been going on?”

Rhodey glanced around, obviously checking for anyone nearby, and then came to a halt. “Since not long after you were first taken,” he admitted, softly. Tony gaped at him. “I couldn’t get through to you, at first, not unless you were asleep. You were sending plenty, but didn’t seem to hear _me_ in return. Or if you did, you just thought it was you thinking it.”

Frantically, Tony thought back. Those first few weeks had been terrible; he’d been desperately worried about Rhodey. All those _dreams_ he’d had!

“It wasn’t until you got yourself out and were in the desert that you finally seemed to be replying to me,” Rhodey continued. “It’s how we – _I_ – found you. And now it seems you can hear me whenever.”

Tony pointed a shaking finger at Rhodey. “The doctor,” he croaked. “And… and in the car, with Pepper, coming here. And—” He recalled the odd look Obadiah had given him, just a few minutes ago. “—here, with Obie,” he finished, almost soundlessly.

Rhodey nodded and got them moving again. “I think you were right when you said you were a Sentinel now,” he confided as they finally reached the car where Happy was waiting for them. “And I’m your Guide.”

* * *

“This is… absolutely _insane_ ,” said Tony.

Happy had driven him and Rhodey to his Malibu house, with a side trip through a drive-thru for several cheeseburgers. The scent of them that rose up when Rhodey opened the bag for him had almost made Tony gag, it was so overwhelming. Cheese and bread and lettuce and tomato and chemicals and preservers and _meat_. He’d had to bury his face in Rhodey’s shoulder for a good ten minutes before he got it under control enough to actually eat one.

Now, he was pacing around and around the sitting area, weaving around chairs, couches and coffee tables. “JARVIS, I want you to look at everything you can about Sentinels coming online,” he ordered as he reached the glass wall that looked out over the ocean. “When did it start being at fifteen? Has it always been fifteen? Any theories as to why? What about later than that? Say, thirties? Or earlier. Could be earlier,” he mused. “If I’m so late, why shouldn’t someone else be so early?”

“You expecting to find news stories of five-year-old Sentinels?” asked Rhodey, doubtfully.

“You never know,” Tony muttered. “Could explain why kids _cry_ so much.” He pouted when Rhodey just laughed at him. “And you!” he exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at his friend. “How did you not notice?”

Rhodey shrugged at him. “I dunno, man. I could always sort of vaguely feel you in the back of my mind about six months after we first met, but I just thought that was being in proximity. Wasn’t until the convoy was attacked and you disappeared that I really tried to do anything with it. And even then, it still took several weeks before it worked.”

“If I may, sir?” JARVIS chimed in. Tony waved a hand for the AI to continue. “Nothing I have read indicates that a Sentinel comes online at anything other than their fifteenth birthday. And it seems unlikely that even an unnatural, forced Sentinel would be able to force, or have forced upon them, a Guide that isn’t theirs. This implies that Colonel Rhodes was _always_ your Guide, and thus, you have always been a Sentinel.”

Tony frowned at the nearest speaker as he began moving again. “Then why have I only come online _now_?” he asked, petulantly. “Why not when I was fifteen, like I should have?”

JARVIS was silent for a moment, but not, Tony thought, because he didn’t have an answer. Rather, it seemed like he was trying to put something into words that he was having to think about. Tony was so proud of his baby boy; it was such a _human_ reaction.

“I believe it may be possible that you _did_ come online when you turned fifteen, sir,” JARVIS said, finally, and now Rhodey frowned at the speaker, too. “Colonel Rhodes stated that he felt a bond to you six months after you first met, when you were still fourteen. If he had already begun the process of bonding, then it seems likely that _you_ had already begun the imprinting process, so that when you came online you noticed no difference, because you had already subconsciously accepted him.”

Tony considered this. It was true that he and Rhodey had bonded fairly quickly once they met; they’d become roommates two weeks later and after that had been as inseparable as they could be considering Rhodey was two years older and had different classes.

“Okay,” he said, slowly, “but if that’s true, then why did it take until now for my Sentinel senses to show up? We’ve not lived together since MIT.”

“But we’ve rarely spent so long apart,” Rhodey pointed out. “We have a standing arrangement to meet every month. It was probably ‘topping you up’, so to speak.”

“It seems the most probable explanation,” agreed JARVIS. “You said, sir, that it took several weeks before you noticed a difference, and before Colonel Rhodes was able to reach you, however vaguely.”

Tony abruptly sat down on the couch opposite Rhodey. This seemed… unbelievable. Fantastical. The kind of things that happened in the big rom-com movies that Pepper liked to weep over and smack him when he called them ‘bodice-rippers’.

He really was a Sentinel. Had been for half his life. And Rhodey, his best friend, was his Guide. Had managed to keep him on an even enough keel that neither of them had even _noticed_.

_What even is my life?_

“Hey.” Rhodey changed seats to sit beside him and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Look, man, this doesn’t change squat, you know?” he soothed. “Now we know what’s going on, I can help you more until things either go back to normal or you get a better handle on it. I’m always here for you; you know that.”

“Yeah.” Tony tipped himself sideways to lean against Rhodey, his head landing on his shoulder, in the perfect place for Tony to breathe in the scent of his friend, of _home_ and _warmth_ and _love_. “Yeah, I know, honeybear. I’ve always got you.”

* * *

Because feelings gave him hives, Tony spent the next few hours alone downstairs in his workshop, while Rhodey remained upstairs to update his superiors and to relax.

Tony had recreated the blueprints for the suit he’d used to escape from the Ten Rings, and he now spun it slowly in front of him, carefully considering the hologram.

“It really is a work of art, sir,” JARVIS said. “Especially considering the materials you had to work with.”

“Excuse you, are you saying Stark materials aren’t the best?” asked Tony, absently chewing on the end of a stylus.

“Of course not, sir. I would never,” JARVIS replied. “I merely meant the equipment was obviously subpar.”

Tony twirled the hologram again. “Couldn’t really finetune it,” he murmured mostly to himself. “Couldn’t test it beforehand and see where it could be improved. Which is everywhere, really.” He gestured at it. “Blow it out, J,” he instructed. JARVIS obediently separated out the pieces of the suit, allowing Tony to see each one individually. He began throwing parts of it into the virtual trash can, until he was left with what was basically the arc reactor and the wiring.

He became totally absorbed in redesigning the suit of armour, making it more streamlined and adding in extra bits he hadn’t had the time or equipment for when he’d been in the cave.

He was so absorbed, in fact, that Rhodey’s mental yell of _“TONES!!”_ made him jump several feet in the air and fall off the stool that he had no idea of when he’d sat down on it. Blinking in shock, he twisted round to see Rhodey trying – not very successfully – to stifle his chuckles in the workshop doorway.

“Sorry, man,” Rhodey managed, “but I tried calling you the normal way and you ignored me.” He finally lost the battle and burst out laughing. “Your face!” he gasped.

“I hate you,” deadpanned Tony as he clambered to his feet. He groaned as he straightened up. He’d apparently been sitting for longer than he thought, and his lower back didn’t like it. Nor did the overall soreness from his escape and flight across the desert. He stretched his arms over his head and twisted his torso, trying to get the small knot in his spine to unwind. “What’s up, platypus?” he asked, as he bent over to try and touch his toes.

Rhodey sobered. “Obadiah’s here,” he said. “Tones…” He sounded grim and apologetic. “He called a board of directors meeting. Apparently they didn’t like the ‘stunt’ you pulled today and they’re planning a motion to lock you out.”

“I wish them luck,” Tony grunted. “If they lock me out, maybe I can finally go on that vacation I keep promising myself.”

“You went on vacation two weeks before Afghanistan!” Rhodey pointed out, smiling briefly before it dropped again. “Seriously, Tones. According to Obadiah, they’re all _really_ pissed at you.”

Tony straightened and really looked at Rhodey. He was worried, Tony realised. Seriously worried. “They can be pissed at me,” he assured his friend. “They can be as pissed as they want. They can lock me out if they want. They’ll lose, if they do that, because I won’t be inventing _anything_ if they do, and so stocks will drop and their funds will dry up. I’m done allowing anyone else to dictate what I do with my company, sourpatch. Because it wasn’t just me that allowed our weapons to end up in terrorist hands. They had all the same reports I did, and supposedly read them better than I ever did, so why didn’t they notice things going astray either?”

Rhodey studied him equally carefully for a moment, then sighed and shook his head. “You’re going to go in guns blazing, aren’t you?” he said, glancing upwards at the ceiling as though asking God – or JARVIS – to give him strength. “What did I say about that, man?”

“I know.” Tony smiled. “But when have you ever known me to be subtle, honeybear? It’s just not my style.”

“Truer words never spoken,” agreed Rhodey. “Still don’t like it, though.”

“Well, I’ve got something to take your mind off it.” Tony beckoned at him. “Come see what I’m working on. I used it in Afghanistan – and we’ll have to send someone to retrieve that, by the way, so I hope you made a note of where you found me and what direction I came from – but I didn’t have the time to do it properly.”

“What about Obadiah?” Rhodey asked, approaching Tony’s worktable.

“Eh.” Tony shrugged. “He can wait. He won’t mind.”

* * *

Tony never did find out if Obadiah minded or not, because the older man was gone by the time he and Rhodey were finally ejected from the workshop by JARVIS, by the simple method of him powering down everything and then refusing to restart despite the pleas, threats and bribes. For all that, though, Tony was quite pleased with how the suit was looking. He’d ordered JARVIS to put it in production, and now they just had to wait for it to be done.

Stumbling through the seating area, where Obadiah had apparently left the TV on in a fit of spite, Tony caught sight of his own name out of the corner of his eye and came to a sudden halt. “Hey, wait!” he said, right before Rhodey crashed into him and they both went sprawling onto the sofa. “Ugh, platypus!” he complained, wriggling to get out from under his friend. “Wait, JARVIS, what was that news segment?” he continued.

Rhodey shifted himself off of Tony, sitting upright, as JARVIS obediently ran the news back to the point Tony wanted. “It is apparently the Maria Stark Foundation’s annual benefit for the Firefighters’ Family Fund,” the AI informed them. “Held every year on this night. They are discussing the likelihood of sir attending, although he never has before.”

“Hmm.” Tony looked at the throng of people, the jewels and the fur on display everywhere and the women wearing backless minidresses who really should know better. “Did I even get an invite to that thing?”

“I haven’t seen one, sir,” said JARVIS. “Perhaps it got lost in the mail.”

“No,” said Rhodey, abruptly. He pointed a finger at Tony, who turned to him at him with his best wide-eyed innocent expression. “No,” he repeated, sternly. “Whatever it is you’re planning, Tones, _don’t do it_!”

“I was just thinking it’d be good to attend the event,” Tony said, blithely. “It _is_ one of mine, after all.”

Rhodey groaned and facepalmed. “Oh, my God,” he groaned into his hand. “JARVIS, start gathering bail money…”

“Rhodey!” Tony gasped, as scandalously as he could. “Just what are you _implying_?”

“I ain’t implying anything,” grumbled Rhodey, peeking over his hand at Tony. “I’m outright _saying_ it – you go to that event, and something will happen. You mark my words!”

Tony bounced to his feet. “You should come with me, then,” he suggested. “Keep me on the straight and narrow.” He winked at Rhodey, who shook his head in despair but also rose to his feet.

“You’ve never managed the straight and narrow in your _life_ ,” Rhodey muttered as Tony eagerly clutched his arm and pulled him towards the hall that led to the bedrooms. Rhodey kept some clothes here but not many, and certainly not a suit that would do for an event like that. Luckily, Tony knew an absolutely _wonderful_ tailor that didn’t normally do housecalls but would make an exception for Tony.

“JARVIS, get Romano on the phone, get him over here _pronto_ with a suit for Rhodey; you know his measurements,” he ordered.

Rhodey sighed as he was shoved into one of the guest bathrooms and, after a few moments being directed by JARVIS, a towel was flung over his head. “JARVIS, please double that bail money and have Happy stand by,” he requested. “I have a sneaking suspicion that we might _both_ end up arrested tonight.”

* * *

The gala was even more crowded by the time they arrived, with those who wanted to be fashionably late finally making an appearance. Rhodey tugged on his suit jacket as they approached the beginning of the red carpet and the crowds of journalists. The cameras were going off so much that there wasn’t even any need for any lights in that area. It was continuously lit like the middle of a summer’s day.

“Stop that,” Tony hissed out of the corner of his mouth. “What’s the matter with you? You’ve worn suits before.”

“I can’t help it,” Rhodey hissed back, tugging at it again. Romano was an absolute genius in his field, but even he could only do so much with an hour. Rhodey’s suit fitted, but not as well as it _could_ have, and his tugging kept pulling at the line of it. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Tones.”

“Nonsense!” Tony waved this off as they stepped onto the carpet and were immediately blinded by all the flashes directed their way. “We’ll have a drink or two, dance a bit, throw away tons of money. We’ll be fine. Hey, isn’t that Hugh Hefner?” He patted an older man on the back as they went past. “Good to see you, Hef,” he said, absently. “Oh, there’s Obie!”

“What a surprise,” Rhodey murmured.

Tony veered off towards where his godfather was talking animatedly to a reporter. Rhodey remained behind, his gaze remaining on Tony’s back. “Obie!” Tony said, clapping Obadiah on the shoulder. “Fancy seeing you here!”

“Tony, my boy!” Obadiah responded after a split-second pause. He smiled at the reporter and then wrapped his own arm around Tony’s shoulders, turning them away from the camera. “I didn’t think you’d be coming tonight!” His grip tightened when he spotted Rhodey, then relaxed again. “Don’t drink too much, you hear?” he said, giving Tony a tiny push back towards Rhodey, then turning towards the next crowd of reporters all shouting for his attention.

Rhodey glanced back over his shoulder as they began climbing the steps leading into the venue hall. “You think it’s a good thing leaving him talking to the press?” he asked. “He could be telling them anything. The board wants you out, remember?”

“Tanking the stocks at one of our charity events wouldn’t do it much good,” Tony reminded him. “Relax, platypus. Nothing’s going to happen tonight. Drink?”

“No,” Rhodey grumbled. “And he’s right, at least on this. You shouldn’t drink so much tonight.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Oh, _relax_ , sourpatch!” he scolded. “One whiskey for bolstering, one whiskey at the end as a reward, and in between will be club soda. Promise.” He drew his finger over his heart in a rough x-shape.

“I’ll be breathalysing you,” promised Rhodey, causing Tony to roll his eyes again. “But for now… I see a general over there that I’d better have a word with.”

“Sure. Go. Relax. Mingle,” Tony urged, waving a dismissive hand towards the crowd. Rhodey gave him a sharp look and a brisk nod, before ducking around a group of women and vanishing immediately into the crowd. Tony only knew which way the man was going because he could suddenly _feel_ it, like Rhodey was attached to him by a piece of string.

Wondering at yet another aspect of this Sentinel/Guide bond that hadn’t cropped up before, Tony made his way to the bar and propped himself up against it as he ordered his whiskey. It really was a good crowd, he noted, full of Malibu’s rich and famous. Hopefully they were having enough of a good time to donate generously to the cause.

He thought he caught sight of Pepper’s red hair, just as the barman put down his drink, and was just about to move off towards her when someone beside him spoke.

“Mr Stark.”

Tony turned his head. Standing next to him was one of the most unobtrusive-looking men he’d ever seen. “No reporters, sorry,” he said, shortly.

“Oh, I’m not a reporter,” the man said. “I’m Agent Philip Coulson, I’m with the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.”

“That’s a bit of a mouthful,” Tony noted. His gaze scanned over the crowd again as he picked up his whiskey, although he was paying much more attention to this agent than he appeared to be. He felt a vague tugging sensation, as Rhodey apparently felt his sudden caution and wondered why.

The man – Agent Philip Coulson – smiled blandly at him. “So I’ve been told,” he said. “I was speaking with your assistant, Pepper Potts? At the press conference. SHIELD needs to debrief you about your recent time in Afghanistan.”

“It does, does it?” Tony murmured into his glass. “Well, you can always make an appointment to speak to me; I’m afraid I’m a bit busy at the moment.”

“Does 7pm on the 24th suit you?” Coulson asked, then barrelled on before Tony could either confirm or deny. “No need to worry about coming to us; we’ll come to you for it.” His smile widened a touch.

Tony was quite sure he hadn’t been worried about going to them at all. He _was_ sure that having this SHIELD – whoever they were – coming to him _was_ something to worry about. “Sure, I’ll just get my assistant to put it in the diary,” he said, dismissively. “Oh, there she is. Gotta go book that meeting in.” And he stalked off before Coulson could say anything else.

“What are you doing here?” Pepper asked as soon as he got within range of her.

“Yes, hello, nice to see you too, you’re looking lovely,” said Tony, pointedly. “And as it happens, I’m escaping government agents.”

“What?” Pepper blinked in bemusement, then looked over his shoulder. “Oh, it’s that man from…” She frowned. “Some ridiculously long name. At the press conference. Said he wanted to debrief you. I forgot all about him.”

“SHIELD. Whoever they are,” Tony told her. “Thinks he’s just set up an appointment with me for that very reason. Find out who they are first? Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.”

“Can’t say I’ve ever heard of them before,” Rhodey added, appearing at Tony’s side. “Was that what got you worried?”

Tony scoffed at him. “I was not _worried_ ,” he said. “Just… concerned. A man who looks like the original man in black turning up from some government agency that no one’s ever heard of and who is desperate to ‘debrief’ me—” He made finger quotes. “—about Afghanistan? Yeah, if that’s not fishy, I’ll eat my tie.”

“Well, at least don’t eat that one,” said Pepper. “It’s a very nice tie that cost half a million dollars, so… go find a dollar store and eat one from there, okay?”

“You expect me to slum it?” Tony asked, raising an eyebrow at her. “Miss Potts, it’s like you don’t know me at all.”

“I don’t know you,” she agreed, and her mouth twitched with the beginning of laughter. “Now go mingle. Schmooze. After your press conference we need to eke out every penny in donations that we can.”

“How rude,” Tony said to Rhodey as Pepper turned back to the people she’d been conversing with before.

Rhodey snorted. “I have a phone conference with the general tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll see what I can find out about SHIELD then. In the meantime, you’re going to stay as far away from them as possible, right?”

“Rhodey, it’s not like I actually invited them to this event,” Tony pointed out. “If they managed to land themselves on the guest list – or managed to get in without that – then there’s only so much I can do. I’m not a superhero, you know.”

“I wouldn’t say you’re any kind of hero, let alone a super one,” said a female voice, coldly, from behind them. The two men spun to look. A vaguely familiar woman with sun-streaked hair was standing there. Tony couldn’t remember where he knew her from. He thought her name was something like Kristy, or Kirsten, or something of the like. Whoever she was, it seemed they hadn’t parted on good terms, as her expression now was cold and disdainful. “You don’t even remember me, do you?” she spat at Tony.

“Can we help you?” Rhodey interrupted, before Tony began digging them a hole they couldn’t get out of.

The woman thrust a small package at them, and Tony tried his best to suppress the urge to flinch backwards. His ‘eccentricity’ had come roaring back once he was Stateside again, and fast movements from _anyone_ were a trigger right now. There had been too many Ten Rings grunts who had loved to shove the barrel or stock of their rifles into his stomach or legs while no one was looking.

Rhodey neatly intercepted the package, holding it up so that both he and Tony could see it. It was a small pile of photos, obviously taken with a long-range tele-lens, somewhere in the Middle East. “What’s this?” Rhodey asked.

“I was at the press conference you held the other day,” the woman said to Tony instead. “Since you obviously don’t remember me, my name is Christine Everhart. I’m a reporter with Vanity Fair.”

 _Christine! That was it!_ And oh… shit. He _did_ remember her now. He’d slept with her, the night before he’d left for Afghanistan. Pepper had thrown her out the next morning.

“Your news caused a big stir,” Christine carried on, still glaring at Tony. “A lot of talk about responsibility and accountability. But it was all just hot air, wasn’t it? I thought it was a change that was too good to be true – the Merchant of Death giving it all up – so I went digging. And sure enough, look what I found. That’s a little town in Afghanistan called Gulmira, just in case you were interested.”

Rhodey flicked through the photos, frowning. Almost every one of them showed streets filled with men dressed in body armour, carrying rifles and machine guns and missile launchers. Men, women and children were huddled in small groups, crying. Some showed men being forcibly moved elsewhere, threatened with guns at their families’ heads. At least two showed parts of the village on fire, huge explosive fireballs that had obviously come from a missile.

Tony had gone cold, staring at the images. Gulmira – that was where Yinsen had been from. He’d spoken a little about things like this but seeing the reality of it was quite different.

“When were these taken?” Rhodey asked, glancing back up at Christine as he shuffled through the pictures again.

“This morning,” she informed him.

Rhodey tapped the pictures together back into their neat little bundle and stared consideringly at the woman. “It’s interesting,” he said, finally, once she’d shifted uncomfortably. “The press conference was just a couple of days ago. Tony said that he’d be stopping weapons production from that day on. But that doesn’t automatically make all of the _current_ weapons out there disappear. So why be so angry with him? Were you expecting each and every weapon to just… what, automatically and spontaneously vanish?”

Christine gaped at him for a moment, her mouth opening and closing soundlessly, before a light flush rose in her cheeks and she snatched the photos back from him. “This,” she hissed at Tony, “is not responsibility _or_ accountability.” And she turned on her heel and stalked off, her back ramrod straight.

Tony watched her go, her final words ringing in his ears. She was right; he hadn’t thought about any of his weapons that were _still out there_. He’d just been concerned that no more would go forth to destroy, but he’d completely forgotten about all the rest.

“Tony—” Rhodey said, but Tony wasn’t listening.

A woman nearby was wearing perfume. A whole cloud of it, it seemed, as Tony could smell it as if _he_ were the one doused in it. It was stringent and burnt the inside of his nose. He turned his head, trying to get out of the range of it, and there was _another_ cloud of perfume, a different one, one that clashed horribly with the first one until Tony felt like his eyes were beginning to water. He took a step backwards, and there was another. And a fourth. And a man’s cologne that overlaid everything with the scent of musk. And another. And another. And yet another perfume. And—

Tony couldn’t tell where all the scents were coming from now, but they all coalesced into a fog around him that made him desperately want to gag. He couldn’t see anything anymore, couldn’t hear Rhodey who was surely calling his name, but he could smell each and every individual scent, all the flowers and the spices and the chemicals and the fruit and the earth and the and the and the…

 _“I’ve got you,”_ he suddenly heard Rhodey say, like a bright spot in the smog. A warm blanket was draped over his head and swirled around him. It helped to lessen all the scents that were ambushing him. _“Is that better? Tony?”_

_(Rhodey… Help…)_

The warm blanket tightened. It somehow smelt of Rhodey, but that was okay; Tony didn’t mind _that_ scent. He breathed deeper, taking it in, letting it soothe the irritation all those perfumes and colognes had caused.

He blinked, several times, and found himself outside the back of the venue. Rhodey was gripping his shoulders tightly, peering at him in concern. “You alright?” he asked. “You back with me?”

“Yeah. I—” Tony shook his head in confusion and glanced around them. “What happened?”

“You Zoned,” Rhodey informed him. “Not sure what on, but I figured it was best to get you out of there anyway.”

“Oh.” It hadn’t been a blanket, Tony realised, as he registered the complete lack of one. It had been Rhodey, protecting him from whatever had caused the Zone. Guiding him. “Thanks,” he added, belatedly, lifting a hand to scrub it over his face. “It was the perfumes. All the different perfumes and colognes.”

Rhodey tugged him forward into a hug. “I’m sorry, man,” he said. “I guess it can be a bit overwhelming even if you don’t have Sentinel senses.”

Tony shuddered but willingly wrapped his own arms around Rhodey in return. He buried his face in the crook of Rhodey’s neck, allowing the other man’s smell to soothe him further. “Did anyone see?” he asked, eventually.

Rhodey shrugged. “They could see something was wrong, but I doubt they’d realise you’re a Sentinel now. They might have just thought you’d had some genius idea; wouldn’t be the first time I’ve guided you out of a place because you’re thinking too hard.”

“And it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve ended up in the papers because people think I’m high. Or drunk. Or stoned. Or all three at once,” Tony added, bitterly. To be fair, he _had_ spent plenty of years drunk off his ass, but he’d only ever tried drugs once. Not only had he not liked the way they’d made him feel, but Rhodey had caught him at it and kicked his ass, despite the fact Tony hadn’t even been sixteen yet.

“Can’t believe everything you read in the papers,” said Rhodey, parroting their oft-repeated mantra.

“Might make Pepper and Obie happy, anyway,” agreed Tony, ruefully. “Back to business as normal, rather than focusing on how I’m ‘tearing down everything my father worked so hard to create’.”

“Speaking of that, what are you going to do about those pictures?” Rhodey asked.

Tony straightened to look at him, although he stayed in the hug. “What makes you think I’m going to do anything?” he asked.

Rhodey raised an eyebrow at him. “Right,” he said, dubiously. “You’re not going to do anything. Anything at all. Nothing.”

Tony pouted at him. His friend knew him far too well after all these years. “I was thinking this might be a good time to really test out the armour’s flight capabilities,” he said.

“Really? You trying out a long-distance haul?” Rhodey asked. “What if it craps out on you halfway over the ocean?”

“Then you’ll send someone to come rescue my ass,” said Tony, brightly.

“Urgh,” Rhodey groaned, but, Tony noticed, he wasn’t denying it. “I hate you.”

Tony reluctantly pulled out of the hug but looped his arm around Rhodey’s as he began to steer the other man around the side of the building to where the valet would have taken their car. “Aw, c’mon, platypus, you know you love me really,” he sing-songed as they went.

Rhodey huffed. “Yeah, I guess I do,” he admitted. “Which is why I had JARVIS patched into your suit. The _second_ you appear to be in danger, he’s got permission to take over and get your ass home.”

“Aww, honeybear,” Tony pouted again. “You’ll ruin all my fun!”

“I’m not wasting all my hard work keeping you alive up until now,” Rhodey replied.

“I’ll be perfectly _fine_ ,” protested Tony as they reached the car. He moved round to the driver’s side, then paused to look over the roof of the car at Rhodey. “And if I’m ever not, then you can say ‘I told you so’.”

“I suspect I’ll be doing so anyway,” Rhodey murmured, and slid into the car.

* * *

“I told you so!”

“Oh, come on, it’s not like I got blown up or anything!” Tony protested as he tried to struggle out of the wreckage of what had been a mint-condition 1962 Shelby Corvette. “I just… misjudged how much weight the roof could take.”

“Uh-huh.” Rhodey had his hands on his hips as he tilted his head back to look upwards through the hole Tony had left as he crashed through the entire mansion down into the workshop area. “Looks like you’re going to need a new piano, too.” As if to prove his point, several white keys and a scattering of wood chips abruptly rained down onto Tony’s head.

“Are you just going to stand there criticising me, or are you going to actually help me up?” demanded Tony, ceasing his struggles to glare at Rhodey.

Rhodey brought his head down to stare at Tony, then he shrugged. “Dunno, I might just criticise you some more,” he said.

Tony gave him the finger, then resumed his struggles to get off of the car. Dum-E trundled over with a cheerful beep, lowering his strut to examine what his creator was doing. Tony grabbed hold of it. “Pull, Dum-E!” he ordered. “Lift up and pull!”

The ‘bot struggled for a moment and then pulled backwards with a long beep of effort. Tony didn’t quite manage to make it upright, but he _did_ at least manage to roll off the car before he crashed back down to the ground.

Rhodey stifled a laugh; not very successfully, in Tony’s opinion. “JARVIS, I think we need the hook and chain,” he said. “Can we get it over here?”

“I’m afraid it doesn’t quite reach that far, Colonel Rhodes,” the AI informed him. “But if Dum-E pulls sir over onto the car lift…”

“No! Nuh-uh!” Tony wagged an admonishing finger somewhere between both Rhodey and the ceiling. “You are _not_ using the car lift to lever me upright, damn it!”

“There is no other option, sir, if you want to ever get out of the suit again,” said JARVIS. “Colonel Rhodes cannot lift you; Dum-E cannot lift you; the hook and chain do not reach that far; and you are unable to rise on your own. I am unable to get the suit off you unless you are able to stand on the platform so that the arms can reach you, and you can’t do that until you can stand up. So I’m afraid the car lift is your only option, sir.”

Tony grumbled but eventually had to concede defeat. He folded his arms over his chest sulkily as Dum-E gripped the back of the suit’s neck and towed it – and him – over to the car lift. Considering Dum-E had to manoeuvre around the lift without actually getting on it himself, it took what seemed like a very long time before Tony was finally positioned correctly so that the rising lift would let him slide off and thus gently tip him upright as it went.

By the time Tony wobbled into a full standing position, Rhodey was sitting on the floor nearby almost in hysterics.

“Ha, ha, laugh it up,” Tony grumbled as he clanked his way over to the removal platform. The arms on it whirred to life as JARVIS got to work unscrewing and removing everything. “Hey, anything on the news yet?”

Rhodey took several deep breaths, trying to get himself back under control. “Some,” he managed to get out eventually. “Most reporters are putting it down to opposite factors falling out, or faulty weaponry that was mishandled and blew up in their faces.”

“My weaponry is not _faulty_ ,” Tony muttered, insulted.

“You think it’s better if they knew the truth?” asked Rhodey, suddenly sobering completely.

The last piece of armour fell away from Tony, leaving him in a thick undersuit. He stepped off the platform and headed for the kitchenette area, rummaging in the mini-fridge. He pulled out a smoothie bottle and held it up to Rhodey in silent question. The other man shook his head.

Leaning back against the counter, Tony cracked open the top and took several gulps as he considered the question. Did he want people to know that it was him that had just destroyed the weapons of the terrorists holding hostages in Gulmira? Would it make things better or worse if the public knew he was cleaning up his own messes for once?

He'd done it, though, by using more weapons. The suit of armour itself was a highly capable weapon – this was Tony Stark, after all. He could just imagine the demands from the army, and the navy, and the air force, and just about everyone, if they saw what his creation could do.

“No,” he finally said, reluctantly. “I think it’s best we keep it under wraps for now, sourpatch. Let the media think what they think for a while.”

Rhodey nodded, then he brightened. “So tell me,” he said, “how was the flight?”

* * *

A week later, Obadiah was insistently pressing Tony for an answer that the board of directors wanted to hear. He also insistently ignored the answer Tony _did_ give him; that Stark Industries would not be producing any more weapons, ever. He seemed to be treating it as a very bad joke, just waiting for Tony to come to his senses and admit that it was just a rare moment of reaction to a bad situation, and that _of course_ there’d be a new weapon coming out.

“ _No_ , Obie,” Tony repeated through gritted teeth. They seemed to be just going around in circles; he’d said this four times already this visit alone. “No more weapons. Period. SI is done with all that.”

“Now, Tony, you know better than that,” Obadiah said, in the condescending tone that Tony was beginning to realise he used far too often. “The board has concerns, you know, and rightfully so. You went through a… terrible ordeal, so it’s only natural that you’d need to take some time to yourself before getting back into the swing of things.” He threw an arm over Tony’s shoulders. “How about this?” he suggested in a low voice. “You let me show _that_ —” He pointed at Tony’s chest, where the arc reactor was hidden beneath his clothing. “—to the board, and I’ll get them to back off for a bit until you’re ready to get back to work.”

Tony shrugged him off, angrily. “For the last time, Obie, _no_ ,” he snapped. “I’ve told you before, time and time again – this one is not for public consumption. This is _mine_ , and it stays with me. Now you can go right back to them and tell that that either they get on board with the direction I’m taking SI in, or they can go find some other board to sit on that’s more to their liking.”

Obadiah stared at him for a long moment, motionless except for bringing his glass of scotch to his mouth. “I think you’re making a big mistake,” he said, finally. “It’d make us – you – a ton of money, you know. Howard was never able to do anything with that big ol’ reactor he put in the factory. Nothing but a big, fancy paperweight, if you ask me. But that.” He gestured at Tony’s chest again. “Now _that_ , we can _do_ something with. Can you imagine the _power_ of a missile if it had that in it?”

“Are you even listening to me at all?” Tony wondered, folding his arms over his chest. “No more weapons, Obadiah. None. The orders to the suppliers were cancelled the day after the press conference. We will fulfil our current military contracts, and then that’s it. We’re _done_ making weapons.”

For a moment, a scent filled the room that abruptly reminded Tony of Raza, and the other nameless bigwig. It was hot and greedy and raw, and held more than a little bit of a putrid undertone. It made Tony feel sick, and he flashed back to the look on Raza’s face when he’d been showing off Tony’s own weapons to him, the impatience the other bigwig had displayed when he wasn’t getting results quickly enough to suit him.

_(“Tony! What is it? What’s wrong?”)_

“Okay,” said Obadiah. He slowly lowered his glass onto the coffee table, setting it down with a forceful little _click_. “I’ll inform the board of what you’ve said, Tony, but they won’t be happy. You’re making a big mistake, here. Bigger than you know.” He stalked towards the door, all bristling offence. He opened the door, then turned back to look at Tony. “I hope you don’t regret this,” he said, and walked out, slamming the door behind him.

Tony slumped onto the nearby sofa in relief. “So do I, Obie,” he said to the empty room. “So do I.”

* * *

“We need to find the mole,” Tony greeted Rhodey just a few hours later.

Rhodey raised his eyebrows at him. “Is that some kind of euphemism?” he asked, sceptically. “Because I did _not_ rush all the way over here for that kind of talk.”

“No, I meant the actual mole in SI,” Tony informed him, rolling his eyes. Then he paused. “Why _did_ you rush all the way over here?” he asked.

“Because something happened that upset you,” replied Rhodey. He scanned the room but obviously found nothing out of place. He turned back and carefully examined Tony’s expression. “What was it?”

“Nothing. Just me being me.” Tony waved a dismissive hand, not wanting to go into his moment of panic. “Anyway, I’ve just been speaking to one of our suppliers. We cancelled every order after the press conference, but a _new_ one was put in last week. They called to ensure that it was still coming to the same place.”

Rhodey side-eyed him but let the deflection go for the moment. “So it’s most likely someone in Accounts or Requisitions,” he mused. “No one else would know how to go about it.”

“There’s a couple of managers who might, ones who moved sideways into other departments when they were promoted, and of course, Obie and Pepper and me, but yeah, in essence, it has to be.”

Rhodey wandered through the seating area to the window overlooking the ocean. “You think it’s a good idea to concentrate on just those areas?” he asked.

Tony frowned as he wandered after his friend. “What? Well, yeah. Obviously. The mole can’t really be anywhere else. I had JARVIS begin to start tracking all the shipment manifestoes, and so far none have turned up missing, so whoever has been selling the weapons off has been diverting them from stock before the shipment is made up.”

“That wasn’t what I meant.” Rhodey paused, staring out of the window, before he apparently came to a decision and turned to face Tony, his face grim. “I meant, are you sure it’s wise to discount Obadiah? Or Pepper,” he added, as an obvious afterthought.

Tony frowned harder. “I know you’ve never liked Obie, and that I never realised that until recently, but he’s my godfather,” he pointed out. “He built this company alongside Howard; he’s not going to do anything to ruin it.”

“I won’t waste my breath trying to convince you or not,” said Rhodey. “But could you at least not dismiss the chance out of hand?”

“Give me at least one reason you suspect him,” Tony bargained. “And not just you don’t like him. A solid reason.” He raised an eyebrow expectantly.

“Because his emotions have always felt smothering,” Rhodey said after a moment. “And around you, it gets worse. It always feels hot and cloying, like I could physically scrape it off your skin with my fingernails. It’s not _right_ , Tony. And ever since you came back from Afghanistan… it’s been getting _darker_. More malevolent. And don’t tell me you haven’t noticed; Obadiah is what caused you to panic earlier, isn’t he?”

“…He had the same kind of look as the Ten Rings’ leader did when he looked at me,” Tony finally admitted in a soft voice that was practically a whisper. Rhodey immediately reached out to him, and Tony unhesitatingly snuggled into him. “As though he would force me to give him what he wanted. As though he _could_ force me.”

“You’re not going to be alone with him anymore,” said Rhodey, sternly. “You hear me? If there isn’t already someone else, preferably me, in the room with you, you get yourself straight out. Got it?”

“But…” Tony said, weakly, “he wouldn’t _really_ hurt me…”

Rhodey let him go to put his hands on Tony’s shoulders, looking him steadily in the eye. “How much pressure has he been putting on you to back down to the board?” he asked. “All those interviews he’s given the press, not quite outright denying the company was going to stop making weapons, but not outright confirming it, either. Treading a thin line of, ‘Oh, Tony’s just recovering from his traumatic ordeal in Afghanistan. Once he’s better, then he’ll get back into the swing of things’.”

Considering that the last sentence had been said almost word for word by Obadiah just a few hours earlier, Tony couldn’t really argue with it. “Fine, I’ll at least include his stuff in JARVIS’ investigation,” he grumbled.

“Good.” Rhodey squeezed his shoulders, and then grinned at him. “So, tell me – did you solve the icing problem yet?”

* * *

“Colonel Rhodes, if I may have a moment of your attention?” JARVIS asked, softly.

Rhodey stirred on the couch where he and Tony had fallen asleep at some point during the movie they’d been critiquing. Tony had actually woken up himself at least quarter of an hour ago, but had remained where he was lying on Rhodey, happy enough to draw up plans in his head to improve the armour.

“Sure. What is it, J?” Rhodey mumbled.

“Sir allowed me access to SI’s network to allow me to search through the shipping manifestoes. I’ve come across a ghost drive on one of the computers that is tangential to that network. There is some… disturbing information on that drive.”

“Huh?” There was a movement through Rhodey’s shoulders, and Tony guessed that the other man was trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes. “Okay, and why not bring it straight to Tony? Why me first?”

“Because…” JARVIS hesitated again. Tony was so proud of his baby boy; he was so _human_. Not, of course, that he’d ever _tell_ anybody that, because as far as the entire world was concerned, JARVIS was just a very good computer programme. If anybody ever found out that JARVIS could actually ape – if not outright feel – the same emotions that humans did, well… HAL and Skynet were notorious for a reason.

“Because,” JARVIS continued, “it involves Afghanistan.”

“What?” Rhodey was properly awake now, Tony could tell. His entire body had gone stiff for a moment, before he remembered Tony was apparently asleep and forced himself to immediately relax again. “What do you mean, it involves Afghanistan? Whose computer was it?”

JARVIS sounded even more reluctant to answer now. “It is a… video, that I believe was supposed to be made for ransom. Or, at least, that’s what the beginning of it is. But then it continues, and the terrorists holding sir speak directly at the camera to someone. They say…”

“JARVIS,” Rhodey murmured, soothingly. “It’s okay, Tony’s home again, and safe here. And we can keep him that way as long as we know where the danger’s coming from. What did the video say?”

“They say that they were not told that it was Tony Stark they were supposed to destroy in the attack upon the convoy. They say that they are keeping him now, so that he can work for _them_ , unless, perhaps, a certain payment is made to a certain place. Then, perhaps, they may consider letting him go.”

Tony felt as though someone had just dropped him into the deep end of an ice-cold swimming pool. He couldn’t help the way he stiffened, and Rhodey hissed through his teeth underneath him. “Tones,” he said, regretfully.

“Sir—” JARVIS began, equally as apologetically.

“No, it—it’s okay,” Tony waved them both silent. He finally opened his eyes. “I knew… I knew they were after me in particular; Yinsen told me. I was the only prisoner brought back to the caves from the convoy. It was obvious they were after me. But I hadn’t realised someone _paid_ them to attack.”

Rhodey tightened his arms around Tony, and his empathic senses were once again bundling Tony up in warm comfort. “You survived,” he said, fiercely. “You survived, and you came home, and you built that suit of armour, and you’re going to _thrive_. We will find out who did this, and we will _salt the earth of them_. You hear me, Tones? They are going to regret even _thinking_ about harming you.”

“I know.” Tony closed his eyes again and buried his head into Rhodey’s chest. “Tell us who it was, J,” he ordered. “Who put a hit out on me with the Ten Rings?”

“I’m so sorry, sir,” JARVIS said. “It was Obadiah Stane.”

* * *

“But _why_?” Tony repeated, for the fifth time. “Obie’s my godfather, he’s been CFO of Stark Industries for _decades_ , why suddenly decide to get rid of me? Has he suddenly gained gambling debts or something? An expensive mistress? What was he expecting to do with the company if I’m gone?” The scent of the ocean abruptly grew stronger, even though the windows were still closed. Tony clamped his hands over his nose and huddled into himself.

The constant sense of warmth from Rhodey tightened around him again, driving back the smell of salt. Tony took a cautious breath and sighed in relief. This Sentinel thing was driving him crazy. He was aware that it usually took new Sentinels a good while to come to terms with their new senses and stop Zoning at the drop of a hat, but surely if he and Rhodey had been bonded all this time, it should have been good for _something_!

“If you are gone, sir, then Obadiah Stane gets the company to himself,” JARVIS said. “Your current will leaves the entire company to him, because it would have been a conflict of interest to leave any of it to Colonel Rhodes.”

“And then he can create and sell as many weapons as he wants,” Rhodey concluded. “For as much _money_ as he wants.”

“Don’t I give him enough already?” Tony wondered, plaintively. “For God’s sake, Rhodey, he gets a higher salary right now than _I_ do! Plus the return on his shares. Why did he need to do this?”

Rhodey sank onto the couch beside him and pulled Tony into yet another hug. Tony swore that Rhodey had hugged him more over these past couple of weeks than in the entirety of the time they’d known each other before that.

“He’s a greedy man, that’s why,” Rhodey murmured in his ear, and Tony had to struggle to remember they were talking about Obadiah. “He’s had a taste of power for all these years, so close to the top and yet so far away. He got even closer when he was acting as CEO when your parents… when you were seventeen,” he corrected himself. “And then he was knocked back down again when you took over. All the responsibility but not all of the power and respect that you had so effortlessly. It’s been more than twenty years; he probably thinks he’s overdue for it.”

Tony shook his head, wordlessly.

“Tony—” Rhodey was hesitant again.

Tony stifled a groan. “What is it?” he sighed.

“My commander’s been making noises recently about how I’m still out here, instead of back overseas with my unit,” said Rhodey. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s been some words dropped in his ear here or there.”

Tony was surprised by quite how much the thought of Rhodey leaving abruptly terrified him. Sure, he’d never liked it when Rhodey was deployed, always worrying about whether his honeybear would return home safely but confident that his weaponry would _ensure_ it. But now that they’d acknowledged that they were Sentinel and Guide, Tony didn’t want Rhodey to go so far out of his reach. Plus there was the whole matter of his weapons finding their way into the wrong hands.

“You’re SI’s liaison; tell them that you’re… liaising,” he croaked out.

Rhodey huffed out a laugh, ruffling his hair. “If I did that,” he pointed out, “they certainly wouldn’t quibble about me returning to my unit, and would add in a dishonourable discharge to boot!”

Tony scowled. He was not a fan of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell bill; in fact, he thought the entire thing was ridiculous. Though he did recognise that he had more leeway than most to disapprove of it, so he kept his thoughts to himself unless directly asked.

“We’ll come up with something,” he said. “Something that you need to be here to consult on. At least for a bit.”

“Until we get this sorted,” Rhodey agreed. “If they think that I can change your mind—”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Honestly, anyone would think that I’m incapable of knowing my own mind,” he complained.

Rhodey patted him on the shoulder. “You have to admit, it is a bit sudden, and directly after being rescued from a very traumatic event,” he said. “Most people would look at _anyone_ askance for that. You just happen to be a bit more public than most.”

“Well, they’ll see that I really mean it once we refuse to sign any new weapons contracts. Oh, hey, that reminds me. JARVIS, keep an eye out for anyone—”

 _“Obie,”_ said Rhodey through a mock cough.

“ _Anyone_ ,” Tony repeated, scowling, “trying to put through new purchase orders with any of the suppliers we just cancelled. Obie might be one of them, but he might not be the _only_ ,” he pointed out. Another thought struck him. “Hey, did anyone get sent out to pick up the remains of the first suit?”

“No,” Rhodey said.

“Yes,” said JARVIS at the same time. “My apologies, Colonel Rhodes,” he continued, when Rhodey looked surprised, “but I took the liberty of sending a retrieval team out last week when it became apparent that it had slipped sir’s mind.”

“Hey!” Tony objected, indignantly. Then he considered things, and frowned. “So where is it?” he asked. “Have they had trouble locating where I left it?”

“It appears they had trouble locating the suit, sir,” JARVIS informed him. “They knew where you were picked up, and followed the trail backwards. Even accounting for the fact you may not have travelled in a direct line, they located nothing that could be part of a metal suit of armour at all.”

Tony pushed himself away from Rhodey, a sense of alarm trickling through him. “Nothing?” he asked.

JARVIS turned one of the nearby screens on and displayed a map of Afghanistan, marking the location where the Air Force had picked Tony up. “The team sent out searched for two miles in both directions from the location that they thought was where you’d buried the suit,” he said, highlighting the appropriate area on the map. “They found no traces.”

Rhodey frowned at the map. “Is it possible they were further off than they’d thought?” he asked.

Tony stood up to peer closer at the map. “No, that’s about the right area,” he said, and pointed to a section of mountain that looked like an exceedingly large rabbit had taken a bite out of it. “I remember seeing that beneath me as I went over the mountain. You’re _certain_ they found nothing, JARVIS?”

“Of course, sir,” said JARVIS, and he actually sounded offended. “I uploaded a partial version of myself into the scanner they used.”

“Shit.” Tony ran his fingers through his hair and tugged at the strands in frustration. “That means someone else got to it first.”

“Villagers? Or the Ten Rings?” Rhodey wondered. He also got to his feet to more closely examine the map. Tony absently wondered if he realised he’d fallen into a parade rest as he did so. “Would they be able to do anything with the pieces?”

Tony ran a considering finger over the map. “There’s no village close enough on that side of the mountains for anyone to stumble over it,” he pointed out. “The Ten Rings is a possibility; although it depends how many bigwigs managed to escape from me when I broke out.” He considered the men who’d so closely examined the things he’d made, time after time after time. “I don’t think they’d be able to do anything with it,” he said, finally. “There weren’t many weapons in it to start with, but I used them all up. The rockets ran out just after I got over the mountain. And the power source—” He tapped a fingernail against the arc reactor in his chest, hidden beneath his shirt. “—came back home with me.”

Rhodey was quiet, but he cast a quick sideways glance at Tony, which meant that he wasn’t just considering the matter but had something that he didn’t think Tony was going to like.

“Out with it,” Tony sighed. “Whatever it is, just… Out with it.”

“Obadiah has been dealing with the Ten Rings,” said Rhodey, after another moment. “What would happen if a remnant managed to find the suit pieces and gave them to him?”

 _That_ sent a chill down Tony’s spine. The absolute horror of the thought must have clearly communicated itself to Rhodey, because his empathic shields were suddenly once again wrapping themselves around Tony.

Obadiah was much more knowledgeable about weapons than the Ten Rings were, or had been. If he had actual _pieces_ of the armour, then it wouldn’t take him very long at all before he managed to reverse engineer it – or get someone else to reverse engineer it – and build one of his own.

However… there would be one, small problem.

“He could make a one-man army out of it,” Tony said, frowning. “But how would he power it? If he knows what he’s looking at – and he would – then it’s obvious that my arc reactor powered it. But I’ve not allowed Obie to look at that. I’ve refused him each and every time he’s asked. That armour was heavy enough for me; with the kind of firepower he’d add, it’d be impossible for anyone to move it by themselves. It _would_ need power. So where would he get it?”

Absolute silence met his question, and Tony looked at Rhodey to discover that his friend was staring back at him with the most terrified expression Tony had ever seen on him.

“What? What is it?” he asked, reaching out to grip Rhodey’s arm.

Rhodey clutched back at him, reeling him in until Tony was tucked tightly up against him. “From you,” he croaked out. “Tony, he could steal it from you.”

“What? No, he wouldn’t. That would—” Tony froze. _Kill me_ , he’d been about to say, and Obadiah would never do that.

But he had. He had _paid_ the Ten Rings to do just that.

“Shit. JARVIS, lockdown, _now_!” he ordered. “Full and complete. No one in except me and Rhodey until I say so. Not even Pepper. I don’t care how much paperwork she needs me to sign; she can pass it through a window or something.”

“I don’t believe Miss Potts will appreciate that,” JARVIS remarked, but the thin, bullet-proof protective shutters were already sliding down over the windows and the doors. They were of Tony’s own making so he was confident that nothing short of a nuclear missile was going to get through them, and if Obadiah had one of those to try out, then they had more problems than just Obadiah trying to steal his arc reactor.

“She’d appreciate getting caught in the line of fire even less,” Tony pointed out. He took a moment to enjoy being snuggled up against Rhodey, then sighed and reluctantly pulled himself free. “C’mon, honeybear,” he said. “I need to make a few spares, just in case something does happen to this thing.” He tapped his fingers against the arc reactor again.

“Don’t even joke about that,” Rhodey warned, but obediently followed Tony down to his workshop anyway.

* * *

“You look like you’re thinking very hard there, platypus.” Tony flopped down onto the battered old sofa, sprawling out over Rhodey’s lap. They’d been in the workshop for hours, but four brand new arc reactors were sitting on one of the tables, ready to be spread throughout the mansion. Not much point in having the reactors if they were at the opposite end of the mansion when Tony really needed one. “What’s up?”

Rhodey didn’t even do him the courtesy of startling when Tony abruptly landed on him. He had been frowning, in a rather absent-minded way, and now he blinked at Tony. “I was just wondering whether Obadiah knows that you’re a Sentinel now,” he said. “It might be a good idea to start training you.”

“Training me for _what_?” Tony sat up to stare at him. “And what difference does it make if Obie _does_ know?”

“Because he might think you’ll know he’s coming,” Rhodey pointed out. “You said you Zoned when you were with the Ten Rings. Would they know it was scent that set you off?”

Tony frowned as he considered this. “I don’t know,” he had to admit. “Maybe? If they had someone who was listening to and understanding the conversations I had with Yinsen, then maybe. He said it outright.”

“So we assume then that Obadiah knows. Easiest thing in the world to find something that would lure you out and then toss a scent bomb at you.” Rhodey shrugged. “Then you’re Zoned, and he can… do whatever and you wouldn’t even be aware, let alone able to stop him.”

“Jesus.” Tony shuddered. “Don’t feel you have to sugar coat things on my behalf, pumpkin. Please, go right ahead.”

Rhodey laid his hands on Tony’s shoulders, his grip tight. “If I sugar coat things, you could end up _dead_ ,” he insisted in a low tone. “I already thought I lost you once, I won’t do it again. Not if I can help it. You’ve been at the top of the pile for so long, Tones, but it’s only been stable so long as Obadiah was biding his time. Now he’s trying to pull it all out from under you. I will do everything I possibly can to ensure that you don’t fall because of him. A few hurt feelings don’t matter, so long as you’re around to _feel_ them.”

“I—” Tony’s voice dried up. The last time Rhodey had been quite this straightforward and blunt had been at MIT, after he’d found Tony getting ready to snort some of the finest white powder available. Rhodey had absolutely kicked his ass over it, and then sat him down and explained just what it would do to everyone else left behind if Tony went down that rabbit hole. He hadn’t been able to look Rhodey in the eye for an entire week afterwards, but he’d also never touched drugs again, so he supposed it had all evened out.

“Okay,” he agreed, eventually, reaching up to wrap his own hands around Rhodey’s wrists, gripping just as tightly as Rhodey was holding him. “Okay, Rhodey. We’ll do it your way. Teach me what I need to know so I don’t immediately Zone out if Obie gets the drop on me.”

Rhodey gazed steadily at him, searching his face to judge his sincerity. Whatever he saw obviously satisfied him, as he nodded once, firmly, and then squeezed before letting Tony go. “JARVIS,” he said towards the AI’s nearest speaker, “I need everything in the mansion that smells…”

* * *

They started back in the main seating area with a blind smell test. Tony dug out a blindfold for him to use, cackling at the disgusted face Rhodey made when he triumphantly produced it from the back of a drawer in his bedroom.

Putting the blindfold on immediately focused his attention on his other senses, especially his sense of smell. It was very odd; suddenly he had half of the room mapped out in his head, able to tell where everything was just by traces of scent alone. Rhodey was obviously the strongest, but Tony’s own scent lingered over everything, making it easy to tell which bits of furniture he’d touched most often.

“This is insane,” he said to Rhodey. “How the hell do other Sentinels manage this when they come online at fifteen?”

“There’s a reason most are yanked out of school for a week or two,” Rhodey pointed out from behind his left shoulder.

“Still.” Tony’s nose twitched, and he absently reached up to rub the back of his wrist against it. “What the hell smells like powder over there?” he demanded, pointing with his other hand in the direction he meant.

JARVIS made an odd little noise. “My apologies, sir,” he said, sounding much more abashed than he ever had before. “I believe it is a dust bunny. The cleaning team must have missed it.”

“They are fired!” Tony pronounced, grandly. “Seriously, what the hell kind of cleaning team misses a _dust bunny_? Especially in a house like mine?”

“Fire later,” advised Rhodey, poking him in the shoulder. Tony twitched. “Smell test now. JARVIS, the first one, please?”

Tony opened his mouth to say… something, but all his attention abruptly narrowed down as a strong floral scent wafted into his nose. It wasn’t just one, either; when he concentrated, Tony realised that he could smell roses, lavender, jasmine, tulips, and there was a softer scent underneath all of that that he couldn’t… quite… identify… but if he could just concentrate on it a _little_ more—

_“Tony!”_

The scent disappeared at the same time as Rhodey’s yell blasted into his eardrums. Or perhaps directly into his brain, Tony couldn’t tell. He staggered sideways, his entire equilibrium fighting to right itself as he scrabbled for a grip on his friend. Just as Rhodey’s hand found his, something warm wrapped itself around him, helping to deaden the scent further.

“God.” Tony tore at the blindfold, not even waiting to untie it properly but tearing it off. It felt as though he’d just run a marathon – or through the desert – and he was sucking in huge gulps of air as though he’d forgotten he was supposed to be breathing at all. “What the hell?” he panted.

Rhodey pulled him into a hug, pressing Tony’s face against his neck. The large drafts of air Tony was huffing over his skin had to tickle, but he had a hand on the back of Tony’s neck, ensuring he stayed in place. “You’re okay, you’re okay,” he chanted, although it was a toss-up as to who he was actually trying to reassure. “Jesus, Tones, that was one hell of a Zone.”

“Sorry,” Tony murmured into his skin, but Rhodey shook his head.

“Don’t apologise, man, that’s what we were going for. It just…” Rhodey blew out his own breath. “Shit, I guess I need the practice, too. That scared _me_ , Tones, and I knew it was coming.”

“How am I supposed to protect myself against something like that?” wondered Tony. “Knowing it’s coming is one thing, but how am I supposed to stop it if someone springs it on me?” Like the scent bomb Rhodey was worried Obadiah might use.

“We practice,” said Rhodey, firmly. “We practice until your reactions are automatic, no matter what.”

JARVIS made the sound that was his equivalent of clearing his throat. “I believe that some scent Sentinels also dab some kind of scent below their nose,” he added. “It helps them to concentrate their attention on _that_ scent, and so they’re less likely to be overwhelmed by another.”

“We can try both,” Tony agreed. “Just… give me a minute, first.”

Rhodey squeezed him tighter, and Tony took a deep breath of his scent. _Home_ and _safety_ and _love_. It helped to steady him, allowing him to get back on an even keel again. Rhodey had always been his anchor, right back from the very beginning, when Tony had been an obnoxious, socially awkward fourteen year old.

_(What would I do without you?)_

“Have died a really awkward death before you even hit your twenties,” Rhodey replied out loud, and oops. Tony hadn’t meant for him to hear that. Rhodey squeezed the back of his neck, then let him go. “Come on,” he said, resigned. “Let’s try again.”

* * *

“Tony Stark, you’d better have a good reason for locking me out of your house!”

The irate female voice, echoing throughout the mansion, caused Tony to jerk awake, flailing. Unfortunately, he wasn’t in his king size bed as he’d half thought he was, but instead on one of the couches in the sitting area, and his movements were wild enough that he threw himself off the furniture.

His surprised squawk made Rhodey lift his head and squint blearily at him from the couch where Tony had apparently been sleeping on top of him. “Wha—?” the man muttered, smacking his lips and pulling a face.

“You are _not_ escaping all this paperwork that easily, Mr Stark! Open this door, right now!”

“I’m sorry, sir, but Miss Potts was most displeased upon discovering that she wasn’t allowed into the mansion this morning,” JARVIS primly informed them both.

Tony groaned and scrubbed his hands over his face. Yes, that was right; he’d put the place in lockdown yesterday, including to Pepper.

“Better tell her something,” offered Rhodey, and then rolled over and apparently went back to sleep.

“Traitor,” Tony muttered at his back, and levered himself up off the floor. He groaned again as several pops came from his spine, some of them alarmingly loud. “Coffee, J,” he suggested, beginning to stumble his way towards the kitchen.

JARVIS cleared his throat, pointedly. “Perhaps, sir, it might be better if you spoke with Miss Potts, first,” he suggested.

Tony came to a halt so abruptly he almost fell over. “JARVIS,” he said, patiently. “There is no way I am dealing with an angry Pepper without coffee.”

“And I am not standing around out here whilst you drink it and then forget my presence entirely,” replied Pepper’s voice, and Tony cringed as he realised that JARVIS had opened the intercom both ways. He shot a betrayed glare at the AI’s nearest camera.

“Donating you to the nearest Chick-Fil-A, I swear,” he growled. JARVIS didn’t respond, but there was a noticeable pause before Tony saw the light on the coffee pot blink on. Resigned, as he could see even from where he was that JARVIS had chosen the slowest setting, Tony changed direction and headed for the front door.

JARVIS obligingly gave him a screen showing the outside of it. Pepper was cradling several large files in one arm, and the other hand was planted firmly on her hip as she glared at where she knew the camera was.

“Pep, Pepper, light of my life,” Tony began, but cut himself off when Pepper’s glare deepened. “I’m sorry, Pepper, but the mansion’s on lockdown right now. No one in or out except for me and Rhodey. I’m sorry. Just leave the paperwork there and I’ll fetch it in.”

Pepper remained motionless for so long that Tony actually began to get worried that JARVIS’ systems had frozen – and hell right along with it. “Tony,” she said, slowly, eventually. “What is going on?” An idea seemed to strike her, because she gasped. “Did you and Rhodey get married without _telling anyone_?” she screeched.

Tony’s mouth fell open. “ _What_?!” he squawked.

“Oh, that’s wonderful!” Pepper was enthusing. “Of course, we’ll have to have another ceremony for all the bigwigs and reporters, etc. Let’s see, if we organise that for, say, three weeks today…?”

“Pepper, Pepper, _stop_!” Tony demanded, waving his arms as if she’d be able to see him through the camera. “Rhodey and I did _not_ get married!”

“We didn’t _what_?” Rhodey’s head popped up above the back of the sofa, looking a great deal more alert than he should have for someone who’d supposedly been asleep thirty seconds ago. “What the hell?”

“…Rings, you’ll have to give those up, I’m afraid, and bridesmaids, that’ll be Rhodey’s sisters and I’ll be the matron of honour, _of course_ , and let’s see… I’m sure we can find an archbishop or someone similar to read the vows—”

“ _PEPPER_!” Tony bellowed, and he could see her jump on the camera. “There’s no need for whatever you’re planning, because Rhodey and I aren’t married. We didn’t _get_ married, and we aren’t _planning_ to get married. The lockdown is for something else altogether that I can’t tell you about yet.”

Pepper’s face fell. “Oh,” she said. “Alright. My mistake.”

Tony attempted a smile – not that she’d be able to see it, but it would show in his voice. “I’m sorry, really,” he said. “It’s just… We have a project that we’re working on, and it’s rather sensitive, that’s all. Just leave the paperwork out there and I’ll get it in a bit.”

“If I may, Miss Potts,” JARVIS chimed in from one of the external speakers, “there is a secure location underneath that bench to your left. If you press the knot hole that’s near the top of the right-hand arm rest, then you may safely leave the paperwork there until sir collects it.”

Tony blinked at the screen as Pepper turned to look at the bench in question. How long had they had _that_ there? he wondered. Still, at least that meant he didn’t have to offend Pepper any further by popping out to get it as soon as she was a safe distance away, nor did it risk any of the paperwork blowing away before he had a chance to collect it.

“I will need this signed and returned in no later than three days’ time,” said Pepper as she secured the folders and straightened up again. She glanced up at the camera. “Please ensure he remembers, JARVIS.”

“Of course, Miss Potts,” JARVIS assured her, while Tony made mock noises of indignation.

“Mutiny,” he complained, watching Pepper retreat to the car she’d arrived in.

“Unless the mansion has fallen into the sea during the last few minutes and no one noticed, then I’m afraid it is not mutiny, sir,” JARVIS corrected, dryly. “As that requires being at sea, and at present we are still landlocked.” There was a quiet click from the direction of the kitchen. “And your coffee is ready, sir,” JARVIS added.

Tony shook an admonishing finger in the air as he turned determinedly towards the kitchen and the ambrosia therein. “I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve such sass, or where you got it from,” he said.

“It’s a complete mystery, sir,” agreed JARVIS.

There was a loud snort from Rhodey’s position on the sofa. Tony cheerfully flicked the bird in his direction. Honestly, he got no respect around here. Reaching the coffee pot, he dug out the largest mug he owned and filled it to the brim, barely pausing before drinking half of it in one go and then filling the mug again.

“Honestly,” said Rhodey in amusement from the doorway. “I have no idea how you manage to do that without burning your tongue off.”

“Practice,” Tony told him. “Lots and lots of practice. You want some?”

“I’ll wait until later. Never hear the end of it if I deny you any of your first pot,” Rhodey said. Tony couldn’t even argue; there had been a memorable time when Rhodey had stayed over and had actually accepted a mug of coffee when Tony had offered the following morning. Except then _Tony_ had run out and had fiercely complained about it for a solid two hours, even after Rhodey had rolled his eyes and made an entirely new pot for him.

Tony took another sip from his newly filled mug. “Speaking of practice,” he began, “are we continuing the scent desensitisation?” They had made at least some progress the day before, but Tony had still Zoned out on smells strong enough to match anything Obadiah might try to spring on him.

Rhodey folded his arms. “I thought we’d try it differently, today,” he said. “Practising like this is all well and good for starters, but you won’t be standing there blindfolded if Stane decides to attack you.”

 _Stane_ , Tony noticed. Apparently Rhodey _really_ didn’t like Obadiah anymore.

“So, what’s the plan then?” he asked.

“You’re going to go down to the workshop, and at various points, JARVIS will let off a scent nearby. _You_ have to try and avoid Zoning over it.”

Tony couldn’t help but wonder, as he meandered his way down to his workshop, just how likely that was going to be. He had a nasty habit of getting so absorbed in his work that even a major earthquake right underneath him could go unnoticed. _Huh_. He came to an abrupt halt on the stairs as he thought about that. _That actually sounds like a Zone._ Maybe that was the way to go; get him so caught up and distracted with something else that a Zone just wouldn’t be able to get hold of his brain. Did Zones even _work_ like that?

“JARVIS, make a note,” he instructed as he began walking again. “Once this is over, we’re going to experiment to find out how a Zone actually works.”

“…Duly noted, sir,” JARVIS agreed, even if he did sound puzzled.

Entering the workshop, Tony headed straight for the table that held pieces of the latest itineration of the armour. “Crank it up,” he said, and gulped down the last dregs of his coffee, placing the mug on the far corner of the table as AC/DC began blaring out. Within seconds, he was lost to everything but the armour.

* * *

Some undetermined time later, he blinked himself back to awareness and discovered that he was now sitting at a table on the opposite side of the workshop, hunched over and soldering a motherboard, although he had no idea what it was the motherboard _of_. His hand jerked as he startled, and he barely avoided the drop of solder landing somewhere unplanned on the board.

“What…?” he asked, lifting his head to blink dazedly around the workshop. He startled again and almost fell off his chair when Rhodey blinked back at him from the opposite side of the table. “Jesus, sugarplum!” he exclaimed, clutching at his chest. “I have a heart condition now, you know!”

“Tony, you were just having a conversation with me,” Rhodey informed him, raising an eyebrow. Then he frowned. “Wait… Were you Zoned?”

“I, er, don’t know?” said Tony, sheepishly. He went to rub the back of his neck and remembered that he was still holding the active solder iron. He hastily thumbed it off and tossed it onto the work table. “I came down here and got started working on the armour and… that’s basically all I remember. What time is it, anyway?”

Rhodey’s eyebrows rose fast enough that they almost flew off his face. “It’s seven thirty,” he said. “We were just discussing what kind of takeout we wanted. You seriously don’t remember that?” Tony shook his head. “Shit. That’s—” Rhodey trailed off.

Now that Tony was aware of his surroundings again, his spine was loudly protesting the fact that he’d been hunched over. He stood up and stretched his arms as far over his head as he could, twisting to relieve the pressure. Something gave way with a noise that was more felt than heard, and the tension abruptly drained away. The relief was so great that Tony couldn’t help but moan.

Rhodey rolled his eyes. “Come on,” he said. “I think you’re done down here for the day.”

Tony opened his mouth to protest, but his stomach answered for him first, growling loudly. Oh, right, he hadn’t actually had breakfast this morning, had he? “Okay, sure,” he agreed. “J, save and power down whatever I was working on, and order a bunch of pizzas from the usual place.”

“Already ordered, sir,” JARVIS informed them as Tony followed Rhodey out of the workshop to the sound of whirring fans going still. “You and Colonel Rhodes reached a consensus about twenty minutes ago.”

“Huh.” Tony threw himself down on the nearest sofa as soon as they got upstairs and wiggled, getting himself comfortable. Rhodey remained standing, staring absently down at Tony whilst obviously in deep thought. “What’s up, platypus?” Tony asked.

Rhodey tapped the back of the sofa with two fingers. “We’ve been flooding the workshop with scents of varying strength all day,” he said, finally. “When you didn’t seem to react to any of them, we thought you’d learnt to control the Zones. But you never even noticed any of them, did you?”

Tony shrugged. “I think my workshop binges are their own kind of Zone,” he said, apologetically. “It’s just a lot more obvious now that we’ve seen the real thing.”

“Great.” Rhodey threw his hands in the air in frustration. “So all we have to do is make sure you’re working whenever Stane attacks. Sure. No problem.”

“Platypus.” Tony levered himself into sitting upright and reached out towards Rhodey, who reluctantly let him latch on to Rhodey’s wrist. “You can’t start worrying about me all the time. It’ll just give you even more grey hairs.”

Rhodey’s mouth twisted in a half-hearted smirk. “ _You_ give me grey hairs,” he retorted, then his expression sobered again. “I can’t help worrying,” he continued, his voice softer. “I always worry about you, Tones. Ever since you were this scrawny fourteen year old kid.”

Tony tugged at him, and Rhodey circled the sofa to sit beside him. “I know,” Tony assured him. “And you’ve done a great job looking after me all these years. But you couldn’t protect me all the time then, and you can’t protect me all the time now. Even with all this Sentinel crap. You’ll drive yourself into an early grave, honeybear, and then where will I be?”

“Up shit creek,” said Rhodey, almost automatically, but he blinked in surprise as soon as he’d said it.

Tony grinned at him. “I think,” he said, “that it’s not just my new Sentinel senses going into overdrive. You’ve been using your Guide abilities on me more in the past few weeks than in the entirety of the time we’ve known each other. Which is a pretty damn long time.”

Rhodey opened his mouth, but was prevented from whatever he was about to say by the sudden ringing of the doorbell.

“My apologies, sir, but the pizza has arrived,” said JARVIS, apologetically.

“That’s okay,” Rhodey sighed, and he got up to go and answer it.

Except as soon as he got in range of the front door, Tony’s sense of smell suddenly spiked, and he was abruptly choking on the hot, sour stench of someone’s malevolent greed. _(Oh, shit…!)_ “Rhodey, don’t open it!” he cried out, but he was too late. Even as Rhodey was turning to him with a questioning expression, he was already pulling the front door open.

“Gentlemen,” said Obadiah Stane, brandishing a gun straight at Rhodey. “How nice of you to let me in.”

* * *

Tony could do nothing but fume as Obadiah forced him to tie Rhodey up. Considering what his supposed godfather had done to him already, Tony had no doubts over the man’s willingness to shoot Rhodey as he’d threatened if Tony didn’t do what he demanded. Tony just hoped that JARVIS had had the initiative to call the police. There wasn’t much else the AI could do, and so he’d been keeping quiet. He had been pushing Tony to install security measures that he could activate but Tony had been putting it off. He sorely regretted that now.

Once he was done securing Rhodey – although nowhere near as secure as Obadiah thought – Tony was waved to one of the sofas.

“You have no idea just what a pain in my ass you’ve become,” Obadiah told him. “All that work I’ve put in over the years to make it the top weapons manufacturer in the _world_ , and you think you can just _stop_?” He shook his head in mock regret. “I told you that you were making a big mistake. Should have listened to me, Tony.”

“Doesn’t it bother you that hundreds of men and women that we were supposed to be protecting were dying?” Tony asked, but if he’d been expecting Obadiah to break down in remorseful tears, he would have been sadly disappointed.

Instead, Obadiah just sneered at him in disdain. “Tony, Tony, _Tony_ ,” he said, in the most condescending voice Tony had ever heard from him. “Don’t be more stupid than you can possibly help. Of _course_ I don’t care about that! All I care about is the money and the power that comes with being one of the top weapons manufacturers in the entire world. Humans are _designed_ to want war, Tony, and those who can provide the means to do it can ask their price. And we ask a _very_ big price.”

Tony grimaced. How the hell had he never noticed this side of Obadiah before?

“It’s just a shame that the Ten Rings decided you’d be worth more to them alive than dead,” Obadiah continued, shaking his head. “It’s caused a lot of problems for me, Tony, I won’t deny that. All these statements about how Stark Industries isn’t going to produce weapons anymore. Do you know just how much dancing I’ve had to do to reassure people that we _aren’t_ actually stopping, that you’ve just gone a little crazy after your… incident in Afghanistan?”

“And you think people won’t notice if I’m suddenly found shot dead?” Tony riposted.

 _(“Maybe it would be a good idea to **not** antagonise the unstable person with a gun?”)_ Rhodey groaned into his mind.

_(Relax, honeybear. I know what I’m doing.)_

Rhodey’s only response was an even louder mental groan.

Honestly, _rude_! Tony stuck two mental fingers up at Rhodey, and then stuck his mental tongue out for good measure. He received back the distinct impression of rolling eyes.

“…tragically failed to stop you,” he suddenly realised Obadiah was saying. “Such a shame that committing suicide immediately after because of it will gain him a posthumous dishonourable discharge.”

“Wait, what?” Tony blurted. He hastily searched his memory for any hint of the last few minutes. _Oh, shit!_ He felt the blood drain from his face. Obadiah planned to set it up as if Tony had killed himself, and Rhodey killed _himself_ after failing to stop Tony.

“It’s a shame to kill the golden goose, really,” Obadiah said, not bothering to repeat himself. “But at least you’ll be able to provide me with one last golden egg.”

Tony’s eyes widened as Obadiah reached his free hand into his pocket and pulled out a small box that fitted neatly in the palm of his hand. It only had one little button in the middle of it. Obadiah apparently took great glee in pressing this, and when he did, a faint humming noise filled the air, just about at the very top of Tony’s hearing range. And then…

He couldn’t move.

He gave a grunt of protest but wasn’t able to do anything more. He couldn’t, he realised with a rising hint of panic, even _breathe_. Rhodey was making noises in the background, demanding to know what Obadiah had done, was doing, but Tony couldn’t do anything to reassure him.

He couldn’t even twitch an eyelash.

_(Rhodey! It’s a paralyser! Oh, God, shit, what’s he going to do to me? Oh, fuck, Rhodey!)_

He didn’t even get a response, this time. Tony was vaguely – very deep down – impressed with the tiny invention. He recognised it now. Howard had created it, designed it to incapacitate their enemies by producing a soundwave that paralysed everything. But even in testing it had been deemed too dangerous, and the prototype – the only one ever made – had been locked away somewhere safe.

At least, Tony had _thought_ it had been locked away safe. But apparently not if Obadiah had managed to retrieve it.

And what the hell did Obadiah mean by ‘one last golden egg’?

Obadiah had finally put down the gun, now that he no longer needed it, and was approaching Tony with something that looked like a large bottle opener in his hand. The older man sat on the sofa beside Tony, throwing the arm holding the paralyser over the back of it, and hoisted Tony’s shirt upwards, baring his chest.

“Just think, you said SI would stop producing weapons, and yet here you are—” Obadiah tapped a finger on the arc reactor. If he’d been able, Tony would have batted him away from it. “—having produced the greatest weapon to date. Just _imagine_ what we could do with missiles powered with that baby.” He wagged the same finger in Tony’s face. “You shouldn’t have been so selfish, Tony. If you’d only handed it over, this could have gone a lot smoother.” And he pointed the bottle opener towards Tony’s chest.

_(Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, SHIT! Rhodey! Oh, God, RHODEY, shit, help me, he’s trying to take the arc reactor! No, no, no, get away from me!)_

Tony felt something brush the side of his face, and would have startled if he’d been capable of it. What was even more startling was that Obadiah actually paused for a moment before shaking off whatever it was and bringing the bottle opener to rest against the arc reactor’s casing.

The something brushed past him again, much stronger this time, and Obadiah paused again. Tony finally realised what was going on. Apparently the paralyser worked on Sentinel/Guide communication, too, but Rhodey was attempting to use his Guide powers to stop Obadiah. Unfortunately, either Rhodey was too inexperienced at using his power that way – unsurprising – or Obadiah was just that strong-willed, as he yet again shook off whatever Rhodey was attempting to do to him and pressed the tool against the arc reactor.

Rhodey _screamed_ , as Obadiah resettled the opener, twisted it and the reactor, and then _pulled_.

The reactor came free with a horrible noise, that Tony was sure would feature in both his and Rhodey’s nightmares if they both came through this intact. He wasn’t certain whether he was imagining it or not, but it _felt_ as though he could feel the air rushing into his chest, brushing against the wrong side of his lungs. He even thought he felt his heartbeat stutter, which was ridiculous as it had already been stopped by the paralyser. He wondered, absently, hysterically, whether it worked on the metal shards, too. Were they frozen in his veins and muscles, or were they even now beginning the trek towards his heart?

Obadiah smiled as he lifted the arc reactor up to eye level to examine it. “One hell of a last golden egg,” he told Tony. “I’ll dedicate a missile to you in thanks.”

Rhodey sounded like he was hyperventilating as Obadiah turned away to pack the arc reactor neatly away into a case that he’d apparently brought especially for it. Tony wished that Rhodey was able to hear him; he desperately wanted to comfort his friend, tell him it would be okay, even if it obviously wasn’t.

And then something crashed through the front windows, sending shattered glass flying everywhere, and launched itself at Obadiah.

They landed at the very edge of Tony’s peripheral vision, and he had to strain to the utmost to see what was going on. It wasn’t until Obadiah kicked whatever it was off of him that Tony realised that what had attacked…

Was one of his suits of armour.

_What the hell?_

The armour was viciously punching at Obadiah, and although he was getting in some good hits of his own, he was still no match for the suit, and he eventually crumpled to the floor.

The suit stood up and looked down at him before turning in a somewhat jerky manner and striding over to Tony. It was only then that he realised that it had an arc reactor in the middle of its chest. Where on earth had it gotten that from? The suit had been supposed to run off of _Tony’s_ reactor, which was currently sitting in a box on the floor.

“Sir,” came JARVIS’ voice through the helmet. “Are you well?”

“JARVIS,” Rhodey croaked from behind them. “He’s been paralysed. Stane took the reactor out. Can you put it back?”

The suit awkwardly turned and tilted its head to scan the floor for the reactor. It bent to pick it up then studied it. “Unfortunately, no, I cannot,” JARVIS informed them, regretfully. “The suit’s hands are too big; they won’t fit to reattach the magnet.”

“You’ve… been holding… out on me… boy,” came Obadiah’s raspy voice. He was shakily pushing himself upright, seemingly not as out of commission as he’d appeared. “Just think… what SI could do… with a whole bunch’a these.” He waved his hand at the suit as he coughed, then turned his head to the side and spat a glob of blood onto the floor.

JARVIS dropped the reactor beside Tony, although it bounced off the cushions and onto the floor, and turned to face Obadiah again. The suit’s hands rose, and Tony could hear the whine of the repulsors charging up. “You will stand down, or I will _put_ you down,” JARVIS said coldly to Obadiah.

Obadiah laughed, and one of his arms swung up to reveal his previously discarded gun in his hand. “Such a shame to put holes in that thing, but I’m sure our engineers can make another one,” he said, and fired several times at the suit.

Tony really wanted to yelp and duck for cover, but although he could feel a vague tingling in his extremities, the paralysis hadn’t worn off enough for him to be able to move himself yet. The best he could probably do was to flop sideways, and then off the sofa, but that would offer a wider target for Obadiah to hit _around_ the suit.

The suit advanced on Obadiah, who retreated at the same speed, and then they were out of Tony’s line of vision and he couldn’t tell what was happening anymore. He gave a grunt of frustration, and then a louder one when the sound actually managed to escape him.

“Tones!” Rhodey suddenly appeared directly in front of him, hands immediately rising to cup Tony’s face. “Oh, God,” he said, miserably, when he glanced down at the gaping hole in Tony’s chest. “Shit. Just… hang on, let me get the—” He let go with one hand and scrabbled at their feet. He soon found the reactor and lifted it. “It’s a good thing we tested whether I could do this,” he informed Tony as he gingerly reached into Tony’s chest cavity to find the end of the wire that had been tugged out.

As the reactor clicked into place, it immediately began to glow as it whirred into life, although it gave a couple of worrying hiccups before levelling itself out. Interestingly, it also seemed to disrupt the paralyser’s effect; a wave of feeling spread halfway up his legs and almost all the way up to his right shoulder. Tony was also able to finally blink, although he was sure he gave Rhodey a heart attack when his eyes abruptly slid closed.

“Tony!” Rhodey clutched at his shoulders. “You’re okay, you’re okay. JARVIS is dealing with Stane and the reactor’s back in place. I’ve got you. We’re okay.”

Tony attempted to speak, but his vocal cords still weren’t working, so he reached out mentally instead. _(Rhodey, oh my God, Rhodey, you’re okay, you’re okay, he didn’t hurt you…)_

Rhodey jumped as though he’d been prodded with a stick, and his eyes went glassy. A tear welled up in the corner of one eye, and slid down his cheek. “Tony,” he said with a gulp, and pulled Tony forwards into his arms.

It was exhausting to do, and felt as if he were trying to weight-lift the entire mansion one-handed, but Tony forced his right arm to curl around Rhodey’s waist in a return hug. His eyes slid closed again as his face was pressed into Rhodey’s shoulder. He only managed a shallow inhale, but _God_ , he’d worried he was never going to be able to smell Rhodey’s scent ever again. He could quite happily go into a Zone over it, right here and now.

“You’re gonna make me grey before my time, man, I swear,” Rhodey murmured into his hair.

 _(Silver fox,)_ Tony breathed out. _(Everyone loves a silver fox.)_

“Hmm. Yeah, okay, I can see that,” Rhodey agreed. “Still gonna keep you where I can keep an eye on you, though.”

 _(Won’t argue that,)_ Tony agreed. He took another breath, drawing Rhodey deeper inside himself. He had to say it. He had come far too close to never being able to say it at all. _(I love you.)_

Rhodey’s breath hitched. “Shit, man, why you gotta make me cry?” he grumbled, but then Tony felt a kiss being pressed to the top of his head. “But yeah, I love you too.”

Whether they meant platonically or romantically, Tony didn’t know and didn’t care. It didn’t really matter either way. There had just been far too many close calls recently, and he didn’t want either of them regretting.

The sound of splintering wood came from behind them, and Rhodey spun round, almost dropping Tony onto the floor. Tony craned his neck as much as he could, curious. The suit, it appeared, had sent Obadiah crashing through the front door.

“Shit,” said Rhodey, and he shot to his feet, yanking on Tony’s arm as he went. “Can you get up yet? I think the police are out there, and possibly the army, too…”

A brief shake of his head was all Tony could manage. His left arm was currently full of pins and needles, but his torso still felt heavy and vaguely like it didn’t belong to him.

“Shit,” Rhodey said, again. “JARVIS!” he called over his shoulder. “Never mind Stane; I need you to come help me with Tony.”

The suit paused for a very brief moment, as JARVIS’ programming obviously warred with itself over helping Tony or protecting him. Thankfully, the help option won, and JARVIS walked the suit back over to the sofa Tony was _still_ sprawled on.

 _(Tell JARVIS to open the suit,)_ Tony said to Rhodey. _(It’s the only thing that will hold me up.)_

“What on earth do you want to get in the suit for?” Rhodey demanded, frowning down at him. “You need to be checked over!”

 _(Because it can’t come out that JARVIS is autonomous enough to decide to pilot the suit on his own,)_ Tony pointed out. _(I can claim I called it to me, or we can claim that you somehow called it to me, but I have to at least be in the suit when we get paramedics and police in here.)_

“And how are you going to explain it fighting Stane if you’re paralysed?” asked Rhodey.

“It is always possible that the paralysis wasn’t as deep, or for as long, as Mr Stane anticipated,” JARVIS added, thoughtfully, apparently guessing Tony’s half of the conversation. “It has been over forty years since Mr Howard Stark designed that prototype, after all. It wasn’t supposed to last this long; in actuality, it is amazing that it worked at all.”

Tony tried to grimace, and managed a half approximation of it that wrinkled his forehead. He didn’t like the idea of telling anyone that Stark tech was faulty, even tech that was decades old and hadn’t been put into production, but the alternative was worse. He didn’t want people to equate JARVIS with HAL or Skynet.

Rhodey sighed. “Fine,” he conceded, and helped pull Tony to his feet. Tony wobbled as JARVIS opened up the armour for him.

 _(Okay,)_ Tony said, as soon as he was safely cocooned inside it. _(Guess we’d better go see if the entire Malibu police force turned up.)_

“Actually, sir,” said JARVIS, softly, into his ear, “it is entirely possible that I may have contacted Edwards Air Force Base for assistance, and strictly emphasised the urgency of the matter…”

Tony would have groaned out loud if he were able. No doubt the entire Air Force had been mobilised.

Outside was absolute pandemonium. Lights from cars belonging to the local police and more paramedics than were surely necessary strobed over everything, and men with rifles were stationed in a perimeter around the mansion, looking tense. The appearance of the suit struggling through the remains of the front door caused a goodly number of them to direct those rifles at Tony.

JARVIS immediately raised his hands halfway in the air, and let the helmet retract so that they could see who was inside.

“Don’t shoot!” Rhodey ordered, stepping out from behind the suit. “I’m Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes, this is Tony Stark, _do not_ shoot us!” The men slowly lowered the rifles again. “Okay,” Rhodey said on a sigh of relief. “Good. Now, if a paramedic could please attend to Mr Stark, and if someone could kindly arrest that piece of shit down there—” He glared down at where Obadiah’s unconscious body was sprawled on the ground.

“Um, I’m afraid he’s dead, sir,” one of the police officers informed them. Tony closed his eyes, as Rhodey gave a grunt of acknowledgement. Obadiah had just tried to kill him. Them. Had just tried to kill _them_ , and had come very close to succeeding. He’d _already_ tried to have a _terrorist_ group kill Tony, and only their own greed had caused the plan to fail. He’d spent the past however many years stealing Tony’s weapons and selling them off to the highest bidder.

And yet… he’d been Tony’s godfather. Had been almost a second father figure to him after Jarvis – the original human Edwin Jarvis – had died. Had seemed to care for Tony, to look after him and look _out_ for him.

And it had all been a lie.

A loud burst of noise caused Tony to open his eyes again. He hadn’t noticed before, but a group of reporters and their cameramen were standing behind the military perimeter, loudly calling out questions to anyone nearby, not that anyone was listening to them. But some of them had apparently been listening in to the official conversations, and had heard that Obadiah was dead. They had come closer to the men making up the perimeter and were shouting questions to all and sundry.

“Mr Stark.”

The calm voice, coming from the other side of them, caused both Rhodey and the suit to spin round. Tony was both surprised and yet not to see the man who’d tried to waylay him at the disastrous Firefighters’ Family Fund event. The one from the government agency with the ridiculously long name. Tony had forgotten it right now – and the agent’s name, too – but it would no doubt come back to him later.

“Who are you?” demanded Rhodey. “And how did you get here?”

“I’m with the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, but you can call us SHIELD,” the man said, and oh, that was the name. “We can help.”

 _(With_ what?” Tony asked, and was surprised when the second word actually came out of his mouth, albeit so raspy that he was surprised it was intelligible at all. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Help us with what?” he repeated.

“The events here tonight, obviously,” the man said.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Tony said, and turned away again. He took a cautious step forward under his own steam, and was promptly ambushed by yet another reporter. He sighed in aggravation as he realised that, once again, it was the reporter he’d slept with. The one who was _also_ from the Firefighters’ Family Fund gala.

“Mr Stark, is it true you used this suit to kill your own godfather to prevent him from ever getting any more of your money?” she asked, thrusting a tape recorder at him. “And does it mean you were the iron man that was blowing up villages in the Middle East?”

He vaguely heard Rhodey groan from behind him, but he was too indignant to stop himself from answering. “As it happens, my godfather was trying to kill _me_ ,” he snapped. “I just defended myself. And I was _not_ blowing up villages! I was blowing up Stark weaponry that had gone astray – also thanks to my godfather, as it happens. Also—” He held up an admonishing finger. “—although ‘iron man’ sounds very catchy and would make a wonderful name for a superhero – not that I am one – please be aware that it is actually made of a _gold-titanium alloy_ , and not actually iron.”

The reporter – Tony still couldn’t bring her name to mind – narrowed her eyes at him. “Who said anything about a superhero?” she asked.

Tony blinked at her in surprise. “Well, I did,” he pointed out. “I said Iron Man was a wonderful name for one.”

“But you’re _not_ one,” the woman insisted.

Tony wished he was wearing sunglasses, so he could tilt his head down to peer over the top of them at her. “But, honey,” he said, as Rhodey hissed at him in the background, “I _am_ Iron Man!”


End file.
